Iconoclastic guitar player Marc Ribot offers up essays and stories in
this darkly funny and subversive debut collection.
"A slim yet powerful book in which Marc Ribot blends bits of memoir with
strange little fictions, many of which are based on his own life and
career."
--Wall Street Journal
"Ribot . . . produced a book that is much like his musical output:
difficult to categorize but fascinating and engaging."
--Inside Hook
Throughout his genre-defying career as one of the most innovative
musicians of our time, iconoclastic guitar player Marc Ribot has
consistently defied expectation at every turn. Here, in his first
collection of writing, we see that same uncompromising sensibility at
work as he playfully interrogates our assumptions about music, life, and
death. Through essays, short stories, and the occasional unfilmable film
"mistreatment" that showcase the sheer range of his voice, Unstrung
captures an artist whose versatility on the page rivals his dexterity
onstage.
In the first section of the book, "Lies and Distortion," Ribot turns his
attention to his instrument--"my relation to the guitar is one of
struggle; I'm constantly forcing it to be something else"--and reflects
on his influences (and friends) like Robert Quine (the Voidoids) and
producer Hal Willner (Saturday Night Live), while delivering an
impassioned plea on behalf of artists' rights. Elsewhere, we glimpse
fragments of Ribot's life as a traveling musician--he captures both the
monotony of touring as well as small moments of beauty and despair on
the road. In the heart of the collection, "Sorry, We're Experiencing
Technical Difficulties," Ribot offers wickedly humorous short stories
that synthesize the best elements of the Russian absurdist tradition
with the imaginative heft of George Saunders. Taken together, these
stories and essays cement Ribot's position as one of the most dynamic
and creative voices of our time.
