Name: Why Karen Carpenter Matters
Brand: Karen Tongson

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

9780571369003

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "9780571369003"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

Colour

Discs

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format Books GB

Paperback

Format detail

Limited edition

Release date

2021-11-04

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Faber

Tax rate GB

UPC / Barcode

1 / Extended format: No / Paperback / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Karen Tongson

Genre GB

Music

Label GB

Faber and Faber

A radical, literary and intimate insight into one of the twentieth century's most vital vocalists.

In the '60s and '70s, America's music scene was marked by raucous excess, reflected in the tragic overdoses of young superstars such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. At the same time, the uplifting harmonies and sunny lyrics that propelled Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard, to international fame belied a different sort of tragedy - the underconsumption that led to Karen's death at age thirty-two from the effects of an eating disorder.

In Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Karen Tongson (whose parents named her after the pop icon) interweaves the story of the singer's rise to fame in the 1960s and '70s with her own trans-Pacific journey between the Philippines where imitations of American pop styles flourished - and Karen Carpenter's home ground of Southern California. Tongson reveals why the Carpenters' chart-topping, seemingly white-washed musical fantasies of 'normal love' have profound significance for her - as well as for other people of colour, LGBT+ communities, and anyone outside the mainstream culture usually associated with Karen Carpenter's legacy.

This hybrid of memoir and biography excavates the destructive perfectionism at the root of the Carpenters' sound, while finding the beauty in the singer's all-too-brief life.

Why Karen Carpenter Matters

Books GB