Paul Lisicky contemplates the profound influence of Joni Mitchell on his life and work.

On this episode of Fully Booked, Paul Lisicky joins us to discuss Song So Wild and Blue: A Life With the Music of Joni Mitchell (HarperOne, Feb. 25), about the tremendous cultural and artistic influence of Joni Mitchell on her innumerable fans, including the author. In a starred review, Kirkus calls this hybrid work of nonfiction—part memoir, part biography, part criticism—“a beautiful tribute to a legendary musician and the act of creation.”

Lisicky is theauthor of seven books, including Later: My Life at the Edge of the World, The Narrow Door,and Famous Builder.His work has appeared in the Atlantic, Conjunctions, the Cut, Fence, the New York Times, and Ploughshares, among others; he has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He is a professor in the MFA program in creative writing at Rutgers University–Camden, where he is editor of the journal StoryQuarterly. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Here's a bit more from our starred review of Song So Wild and Blue: “When Lisicky’s fourth grade music teacher…introduced the class to Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now,’ the result for him was transformative. Thus began a lifelong love of Mitchell’s considerable output. As Lisicky puts it, ‘Joni’s songs saved my life.’ In this exceptional, warmhearted memoir, each chapter bearing the title of one of Mitchell’s songs, Lisicky draws parallels between the singer-songwriter’s artistry and life struggles and his own difficulties and cites how her work inspired him. An aspiring songwriter himself—he composed liturgical songs, in part because he couldn’t write love songs about the men he was attracted to—Lisicky was moved by the structure of the tunes in Mitchell’s album For the Roses and by her voice, which, in one of many poetic phrases, ‘sounded like honey had been poured onto it—or perhaps California had been.’ Along with moving passages about his relationships and their challenges, Lisicky writes beautifully on mortality and death, including his parents’ health struggles, and on the highs and lows of being an artist. ‘To follow Joni’s lead,’ Lisicky writes, ‘was to find out what was inside me.’”

Lisicky says that he embarked on this project as “a prose writer of literary nonfiction, not so much a journalist”; thus, he sought to focus on Mitchell’s songs, and the lessons therein, more than her biography. We discuss Mitchell’s ability to reinvent herself, her musicality, and her distinctive “sonic thumbprint.” We consider the ecstasies and anxieties of artistic influence (including some of Mitchell’s influences), artists who work in multiple media, and the struggle to keep creating art over the course of a lifetime. We talk about rendering relationships in memoir, Mitchell’s appeal to queer audiences, and the album new listeners should start with. 

Then editors Laura Simeon, John McMurtrie, and Laurie Muchnick share their top picks in books for the week.

EDITORS’ PICKS:

Rick Kotani’s 400 Million Dollar Summer by Waka T. Brown (Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins)

On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer by Rick Steves (Avalon Travel)

A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke by Adriana Herrera (Canary Street Press)

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

My Curious Life by Robert Danna

The Paris Understudy by Aurélie Thiele

Goldfield Forest by Karen Black

Bill Bailey, Please Come Home by A.N. Stewart, illus. by Virginia de Mahy

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.