Coal to Diamonds by Beth Ditto with Michelle Tea; Spiegel & Grau, $22
Coal to Diamonds, the frank rags-to-riches memoir by Beth Ditto, lesbian lead singer of the popular band Gossip, is unique in that it tells the story of her life before the band became a hit. Many rock band chronicles have a tendency to detail the lives of its members during or just after the group has dissolved, every partner awash in regret and often simmering with animosity and potential lawsuits. Ditto displays no such regrets, as Gossip continues to chart singles thanks to a contemporary, post-punk, guitar-driven sound and the singer's distinctive tone.
Ably assisted by San Francisco's own literary luminary Michelle Tea, Mary Beth Ditto writes of an upbringing in rural Arkansas (a place "a good 10 years behind the times") in the town of Judsonia, a locale that had seen better days, with residents teetering on the edge of poverty. Gun ownership was a given, kids wore squirrel tails (and dined on the little rodents), and Ditto found herself in high school raised by a "warmhearted Sagittarius" single mother, yet ensconced in a family that moved in and out of her Aunt Jannie's house out of desperation and convenience.
Her appearance was a high-maintenance art-piece consisting of a Kool-Aid dye job, Converse sneakers, rotund body, and a plucky feminist-pro-choice-anti-racism attitude "desperate for subculture." But Ditto has a soaring voice that set her apart from the pack. She smoothly details her love of music and singing, and an emerging attraction to girls, the first of whom was Kathy, a feminist who "just hung around with all her hair in her face, projecting cool, radical wisdom." A crush ensued but faded, since many of her close friends were older, and graduated before she did. This left Ditto on her own to finish in a haze of worsening depression cured only by graduation and leaving Arkansas behind to move to Olympia, Washington, a place "crawling with music" where the rock scene welcomed her with open arms.
As Gossip became popular (Kathy became a member) and filled in the gaps of Ditto's sketchy employment history, her realizations of being a "closeted femme" and a subsequent move to Portland couldn't prevent bouts of body dysmorphia, self-mutilation, and vision deterioration.
It's been a long road to fame for Gossip girl Ditto, and her memoir is best summed up in the book's final chapters, about how the media writes of her band not in terms of music but in terms of its lead singer's appearance, "overweight and wearing tight clothes." Ditto, who describes herself as "wacky," denounces her detractors with a cool mixture of bluster and pride, noting that "to be myself in this world is every bit as important and radical as any song I've ever sung."