I'll Never Write My Memoirs

August 31, 2015
Jones's outrageous influence endures to the present day, so it is disappointing that her memoir, promising blood and thunder, instead turns into a litany of experiences, lacking the spark that would keep the reader interested. Jones was a 1970s runway model turned disco recording star, whose classics include the lasting "La Vie en Rose." She narrates her journey beginning with a painful childhood in Jamaica, where she was regularly beaten, and her rejection of how religion was practiced there. She writes that she felt "nothing" upon leaving Jamaica for America. Later she embraced her native country, letting Jamaica into her music. Jones plods from event to event, recounting bare facts of her life that could be easily found elsewhere. She gets more personal when talking about her love of hats and hoods, and in her discussion of her theatrical performances, channeling her androgynous persona into finding "a different way to be black, lesbian, male, female, animal." At the end, she is alone, but writes that she is not lonely. After a duet performance with Pavarotti, she feels afraid of being abandoned. She is disappointed with the singers who came after her because they don't stay true to themselves. And she writes about the sex, drink, drugs, and arrests that may come with fame. But all these anecdotes are unfortunately detached from emotion and insight.

August 15, 2015
Iconoclastic model, singer, and actress Jones reflects on a highflying life of celebrity exuberance. Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, Jones (b. 1948) entered a world that was drastically different than the image of glitterati elegance with which she would later become synonymous. Raised in a strict Pentecostal home, Jones remarks, "there was an Islamic level of intolerance, an Amish severity." It was the constriction of her upbringing that created a sense of rebellion in the author that would define her personality and professional life. For Jones, rebelling was less an act of asserting independence than an exertion of "one of the few pleasures I could find for myself." It wasn't until Jones joined her parents in America that she began to define her rebellious nature and reinvent herself as Grace (previously, she went by her middle name, Beverly). Striking out on her own, Jones settled in Philadelphia, where she struggled as an aspiring actress, before moving to New York to pursue modeling full-time. In New York and Paris, the author began to cultivate her signature image of androgynous austerity. She also began frequenting New York's pre-disco club scene that she helped forge and later solidify as a Studio 54 regular. Having struggled to break out as a traditional singer, Jones' turn to pop was less about vocal talent than about her "personality bringing presence to the record." Her club hit, "La Vie En Rose," helped establish her as a disco icon before she transformed her style into the more stylized avant-pop artist that she is known for. In her candid reflections, Jones writes about her lovers, including her unforgettable first orgasm, her constant quest for new experiences and willingness to try new things, and the free-flowing social circles of fashionistas, artists, and musicians from a time which, even for the author, is often a hazy, half-remembered sensation. Jones' recollections are a passionate reminder of the fabulous, decadent, and manic coupling of life and art.

COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 15, 2015

Jones views herself as both an artist and a work of art, formed by religious dogma, rebellion, and cross- and countercultural influences and experiences. The author left home to pursue theater, joined a hippie commune, and wound up on a nomad's path of modeling, music, and then eventually acting. The eccentric public persona known as "Grace Jones" (her family addresses her by her shortened middle name Bev) was the creation of photographers, designers, artists, producers, and music executives--boldface names including Andy Warhol and Keith Haring and fashion designers such as Issey Miyake. To understand her as both art and artist is to understand the dramatic sociopolitical and cultural changes characteristic of the last half of the 20th century. Moving from the free-love hippie culture of the 1960s to the decadence of the 1980s, this title is part artist's statement, part art history companion. Jones's writing is poetry and prose, revealing just enough to help readers contextualize her personality yet teasingly evasive enough to leave room for interpretation. VERDICT Recommended mostly for Jones fans, this book would also be of interest to those who enjoy reading about art and fashion movements of the 1980s as well as pop culture icons such as Lady Gaga and Rihanna.--Tamela Chambers, Chicago Pub. Schs.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2015
Before Annie Lennox, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Caitlyn Jenner, there was Grace Jones. Model, singer, actor, disco queen, gay icon, Jones has played many roles and adopted many personae in her life, but as her mesmerizing memoir attests, she has always tried to be true to herself. Born in Jamaica, she came to the U.S. as a teenager. She was then and is still now the perennial outsider. In her entertaining fashion, she tells things as she saw them, such as her strict, Pentecostal upbringing in Jamaica and her teenage years outside Syracuse, New York, as she began chasing her own identity ( I wanted to look more like I felt ). She offers plenty of engaging anecdotes as she describes her modeling, acting, and singing careers ( I Need a Man, Pull up to the Bumper, Slave to the Rhythm ), her friendship with Andy Warhol, and her notorious encounter on Russell Harty's BBC talk show. In these days of instant celebrity and reality television, Jones' fierce iconoclasm and refusal to compromise should appeal to outsiders everywhere.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)