Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell

BOOK SUMMARY

Joni Mitchell is a cultural touchstone for generations of Americans. In her heyday she released ten experimental, challenging, and revealing albums; her lyrics captivated people with the beauty of their language and the rawness of their emotions, both deeply personal to Mitchell and universally relatable to her audience. In this intimate biography, composed of dozens of in-person interviews with Mitchell, David Yaffe reveals the backstory behind the famous songs—from her youth on the Canadian prairie, her pre-vaccine bout with polio at age nine, and her early marriage and the child she gave up for adoption, up through the quintessential albums and love affairs, and all the way to the present—and shows us why Mitchell has so enthralled her listeners, her lovers, and her friends.

Yaffe has had unprecedented access both to Mitchell and to those who know her, drawing on interviews with childhood friends and the cast of famous characters (Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Leonard Cohen, David Crosby, and more) with whom she has crossed paths and influenced, as well as insightful analyses of her famous lyrics, their imagery and style, and what they say about the woman herself. Reckless Daughter tells the story of Mitchell and also of the fertile, exciting musical time of which she was an integral part, one that had a profound effect that can still be felt today on American music and the industry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Yaffe was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1973. He has written on numerous subjects (music, film, theater, dance, higher education) for The Nation, New York, Slate, The New York Times, The New Republic, and other publications. He is currently a professor of English at Syracuse University, and is the author of Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing and Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown.

PRAISE

"David Yaffe has crafted a beautiful, heartbreaking, fierce and uncompromising look at one of the greatest artists of the past 50 years . . . A lush, complex, carefully researched examination . . . Reckless Daughter will most likely prove to be the best, most comprehensive look at all sides of this powerful and still meaningful, still influential musical and artistic presence." —Christopher John Stephens, Pop Matters

"Yaffe paints a vivid portrait of this bold artist." —Carol O'Sullivan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A wild ride through the coming-of-age wilderness of the famed rock bassist...Relentlessly honest, untamed, and often revelatory." —Kirkus

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Trade paperback
448 pages
Non-fiction
8.2 in H | 5.5 in W | 1.2 in T | 0.9 lb