Songs Only You Know

February 10, 2014
In this overlong memoir, Hoen tells of growing up in and outside of Detroit with a crack-smoking father, a helpless but stoic mother, and a painfully shy and desperately-seeking-meaning-in-life sister. Hoen channels his own frustration into playing in a punk music band. Weaving stories of the band’s life with his family life, he paints a now all-too-typical tale of a family going down in flames. Music sort of saves him, though: “With every traveled mile I sensed a mythology in the making, a history I imagined musicologists discussing years later.” Eventually, Hoen comes to himself, though not before losing himself again: “To achieve self-invention, you first evacuate the truest parts of yourself—they were slipping from me, connected only by a fear of losing touch completely.” In the end, what starts as a promising read, loses its rhythm.

March 1, 2014
Perceptive, sprawling memoir of a young man's escape from cascading family tragedies into the noise-punk underground. Hoen's debut offers an intense panorama of the 1990s Rust Belt. As his hometown of Dearborn, Mich., contracted economically, what remained was a decayed landscape simultaneously urban and rural, rife with dark temptations. The author's family life began imploding when his father went from a stable career at Ford to a crack cocaine addiction. Hoen's response was to strike out on tour with his band, Thoughts of Ionesco, which developed a cult following for its members' intensely messy, gruesome live performances. As he engaged in the punk rituals of angry music and destructive carousing, he tried to keep this lifestyle separated from his long-suffering mother and his fragile sister, a sensitive, earnest girl who went from bullied outcast to her own hedonistic scene, concealing the depths of her depression. She committed suicide at 22 while hospitalized after several abortive attempts. As he mourned his sister and made amends with his father (still secretly using), he tried to develop a more sophisticated songcraft: "The trouble was that the sad, simple music I wanted to make was beyond my range." Hoen returned to an aggressive post-punk sound with his next band, The Holy Fire, which gained critical praise and a recording contract. However, the author found that this only led to nonstop touring and deepening debt, while his own substance abuse and failing health led him to wonder if he was following his father's path. Hoen writes with an acute eye and colorful yet controlled prose, but the overlong plot arc contains repetitive scenes of tour life and personal strife; this approach comes to feel rambling and slackens the power of his observations. A dark, knowing look at addiction, rock 'n' roll, and the ties that bind.

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April 1, 2014
In his rousing debut memoir, punk-rocker Hoen plunges into the chaotic family life that led him to substance abuse and the aggressive musical style that saved him. A Detroit-area native, Hoen spent most of his teen years in the 1990s trying to come to terms with his anger. And he had plenty to be angry about. His Catholic mother's determination to protect him only drove him away. His depressive sister's emotional deterioration and eventual suicide raised questions about hope and goodness. His father neglected his family and a promising job with Ford because of a crack-cocaine addiction, leaving young Sean worried about his own fate. In the hopes of escaping it all, Hoen started a band and hit the road, only to find himself losing control of his mental stability. Astute and intensely self-aware, Hoen writes furious prose with a storyteller's eye for detail. While some sections about his band's touring grow a bit tedious, there's no question that Hoen is a gifted, impassioned writer with a deep understanding of longing and pain.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)