Face It: A Memoir

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She was and is one of the most recognizable stars in the world and makes no apologies about taking advantage of her looks throughout her career. Through it all – while being acclaimed as one of the most beautiful women in the world, prized by a galaxy of leading photographers and fashion designers, beloved by legions of fans for her relentless, high-octane performances, selling 50 million albums or being painted by Andy Warhol – Debbie Harry has infused her perennial Blondie persona with a heady mix of raw sexuality and sophisticated punk cool. Rather than it being a more obvious type of autobiography documenting her famous photogenic looks as there's more to her than just her pretty face of course! The overall vibe this memoir gives off is that of an artist who has been prodded into writing a memoir by her marketing team, and clearly has no interest in laying her soul bare. Blondie fans will love its piquant atmospherics and the energy and honesty of Harry’s take on her singular saga.

By the time I went there Patti Smith, the Ramones, the Talking Heads and Blondie had moved far away from this tiny stage. But by the second full day of audio, her tone seemed flat and impersonal with little or no emotion or inflection.There are a lot of descriptive scenes of New York in the 70's and name dropping of people of whom some I were familiar with but others that I had to look up. Read or listen to her life's story and go out and listen to her solo albums which are amazing as well. She is honest about the drug scene, her use, and the her life, with Chris Stein, and their struggle to make it without abolishing their punk mentality. I enjoy tales of the early days of the New York City punk scene and Blonde certainly had an important role in it. However, along with her courage and talent and happy enduring personal a professional relationship with Chris Stein, her perseverance paid off.

From the spit and sweat of the New York Punk scene to the glamour and polish of New Wave success, Debbie Harry has relentlessly maintained her invincible aura of cool. It’s a shame that Harry passes up the chance to dig deeper into her experiences of objectification and the nature of fame, but more disappointing is that we learn so little about her interior life, and how she really thinks and feels.Knowing that there are still those who expect her to be simply "a blonde in tight pants," she tells her life story how she wants to tell it.

We get a superficial account of her childhood and her adopted family and then move to NYC in the late 60s. She discusses her childhood, early years in New York City, the near-chance meetings that led her to form a few bands that led to Blondie. With all the grit, grime, and glory recounted in intimate detail, Face It recreates the downtown scene of 1970s New York City, where Blondie played alongside the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Being from Texas I don’t get to hear accents like hers too often, and she narrated the book with such an unusual cadence, I was mesmerized by her voice for a while.Nevertheless, I was enchanted by her girlhood in New Jersey and somehow making the decision after high school to become an artist (of a genre to be determined) in New York in the 1960s--and, despite all odds, actually accomplishing it. Inspirational, entertaining, shocking, humorous and eye-opening, Face It is a memoir as dynamic as its subject. I couldn’t wait for my library to get a copy, so I listened to the audio on Scribd without the benefit of having a digital or print book to complement it- something I rarely do.