As a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, visual artist, and member of The New Pornographers, Neko Case is unquestionably one of the most creative, versatile, and distinctive artists performing in the 21st century. With The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, she turns her singular talents to telling her own story, with haunting and profound results.
Case is fascinated by ghosts, and her memoir is filled with them. As a child, she faced heartbreaking and infuriating hardships, including being bounced between her young, "stressed and uninterested" parents, who were "poor as empty acorns" and utterly incapable of caring for her. That Case emerged relatively intact from these experiences is a marvel. Bighearted and compassionate, her telling captures how a person can make sense of her life and the people who care for her, however imperfectly--and the fact that some people can't. She writes, "[Forgiveness is] not a tiny golden diploma you bestow upon someone. Forgiveness takes many forms and may be as simple as the moment something no longer has power over you." Her humor and generosity with her younger self, as well as with the friends and family who helped her survive, are an expert demonstration in emotional intelligence and wisdom.
Music played a decisive role in how Case began to build her own identity, to connect with other like-minded people, and to forge her way into the world. Case emerges into the world and makes it her own, on whatever terms she can craft, and The Harder I Fight the More I Love You is a marvelous and moving memoir with an insistent, important perspective on the world. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.