The Skin Above My Knee

December 12, 2016
With unflinching honesty, Butler, a professional oboist for 25 years, recalls her love of music and how it saved her. One of her earliest memories of what would bloom into the lifelong love affair is of lying on the floor at age four and listening to her favorite opera singer, Kirsten Flagstad, in Tristan and Isolde while her mother vacuumed. Even at that young age she “implicitly understood” that music is “marvelously transcendent.” Her protective parental bubble was short-lived, as she realized that her chilly and unaffectionate mother couldn’t show her the love she craved; her father was violent and abusive with her older sister and later molested Butler herself. Her salvation came when she was 12 and the band director asked for a volunteer to take up the oboe. But she had to strike a devil’s bargain, submitting to her father’s demands in order to get rides to lessons. Butler escaped to music school at Mannes, but the lasting effects of her mother’s indifference and her father’s abuse wrought havoc on her personal life, specifically in the men she chose to date and the one whom she briefly married. She learned painful lessons, and shares them courageously along with her hard-earned wisdom about what to hold onto and what to let go. In the end, this is a moving account of how passion and creativity can be powerful weapons against neglect, cruelty, and self-harm.

Marcia Butler narrates her memoir of rising above difficult circumstances through music as she struggles to overcome her challenging family life while pursuing a career as a professional oboist. Her delivery is clear and well paced even as she recounts the pain of growing up with an abusive father and an emotionally absent mother, and later finding herself in dysfunctional relationships with the men who would come into her life. In the midst of these personal challenges, she pursues mastery of her instrument. At times, Butler's narration comes off as self-involved, but given all she has experienced, baring her soul to the listener is an act of bravery. The narration is bookended by short oboe performances, a fitting addition that provides context for the listener. S.E.G. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

December 1, 2016
Can music save a person's life?For professional oboist Butler, the answer is yes. Her brutally honest memoir recounts the life of a woman who was able to overcome devastating emotional and physical pain, sometimes self-inflicted, thanks to the music she loved and performed. Her father was a creepy and violent man who once smashed her sister's face with a brutal punch. He haunts this book, while the author's mother comes across as weak, quiet, and passive in the background. There seemed to be little love in the household. However, there was music, and Butler grabbed on to it like a life raft. As a 4-year-old, she was mesmerized by Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and singer Kirsten Flagstad. Butler picked up the flute in fourth grade and later, when her music teacher asked for a volunteer to play a new instrument, she took on the oboe. The music and hours of practice were always there for her when her parents weren't. The book proceeds chronologically, with many italicized chapters interspersed. These are mainly about music and performing and her favorite composers, and they're a welcome respite from the pain of her personal story. Eventually, Butler got into a conservatory in New York City and worked odd jobs to survive. Her low self-esteem and unrelenting search for a new father figure led to a failed marriage, abusive boyfriends, drugs, and even a suicide attempt. But there was always the music, and she writes lovingly and beautifully about it. She tells us about making reeds for her oboe, why many conductors aren't worth their salt, how difficult and "glorious" it is to work as a freelance musician with great composers (Andre Watts, Keith Jarrett), and the utter joy of performing Bach's St. Matthew Passion, which "tests the endurance of all oboists." The light and the dark fight it out in this fierce, fiery memoir.

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November 1, 2016
Oboist Butler's impressive memoir, her first book, is the story of her career in, and abiding love for, music. She gained a childhood appreciation for the Wagner records her mother, aggressively distant, would play while vacuuming, and soprano Kirsten Flagstad's performance as Isolde is a recurring motif throughout Butler's reminiscences of her life. Butler also draws on operas to make sense of the men in her life: her abusive father is Wotan to her Brunnhilde; an alluring and dangerous ex-boyfriend is Don Giovanni, or just Don G.; and her abusive and jealous ex-husband is Faust's demon, Mephisto. Butler's worst days, the drug-fueled and suicidal ones, occur when she abandons music, or tips too deeply into the absence of her mother's love. (Her mother is also the inspiration for the book's intriguing title.) In the book's acknowledgments, Butler refers to herself as a not-so-sure writer, but her readers will happily disagree; her imaginative prose fires the senses dramatically. Music aficionados will find an extraordinarily kindred spirit here, and lovers of memoir will find this a sensationally satisfying one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)