Night Moves

"I love Jessica Hopper’s writing. She is a legendary critic who started out as part of the original riot grrrl scene. She had a book out a few years ago called The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic , which is a very provocative and mostly true title. There are some out-of-print examples from the 80s, but to all intents and purposes, she can stake that claim. That book collected her work from her zine days through to the work that she’s doing now for Pitchfork, Spin and Buzzfeed and all sorts of places. Night Moves is a different kind of book. It’s a memoir of a very specific time—which I think is the best type of memoir, like Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up . It was adapted from the diaries of life in Chicago in her mid-to-late twenties; she still lives there. It’s just on the cusp of modern technology; she and her friends have to go to the library if they want to use the internet. It’s just a really joyful portrait of cycling around the city, going to punk shows, seeing gentrification happening and being aware that you’re part of it, mourning what’s disappearing, but also valuing the new. “It’s a memoir of a very specific time—which I think is the best type of memoir.” The age that she is in the book is the age that I am now. She says something like, ‘If at 29, I was not living my most hopeful politics then what am I doing?’ It’s a good thought to keep in mind. It’s a pretty breezy book, I read it in probably two or three train rides, but if you like her work and have any interest in the DIY punk scene, then it’s worth reading. No, they’re not. I think that gives it a really nice immersive feel. If it were in chronological order, you might expect some narrative payoff. You get to know her friends because of the assemblage of anecdotes. I read a lot of memoir and I like it, but I often think: how does somebody know how to write the end of their memoir? When you’re Shirley Collins, you’ve lived a very full life and the ending is clear, but if you’re writing about your twenties or thirties, how do you conclude that? An ending seems finite, but obviously your life isn’t over. Sometimes I think it can strike a false note, and so the bricolage of memories in this book—not to sound incredibly wanky—was really delightful, I thought. I did some reading interviews with her and I think she said there are parts of it that are maybe styled up or slightly changed but there is no indication in the book of where those boundaries lie. I didn’t read it as a wholly truthful diaristic photocopy, but it didn’t seem falsified. It seems mythologised , but everyone’s memories are mythologised. I found it a much more straightforward read than Crudo by Olivia Laing , which I did enjoy but found slightly baffling in parts. Totally. She’s always cycling between several shows in one night, or going to dance parties, or DJing herself. Even when an interaction isn’t directly orbiting music being performed or listened to, everybody who’s in her scene and everything that’s to do with her life is all about music. There’s a way that you can professionalise in your mid-to-late twenties and lead a fancier life, but these are people who are really dedicated to it and want to be fully immersed in it whatever the cost of that is."