Ask a young girl what she wants to be when she grows up, and there's a good chance she'll say "rock star." Ask a rock star what she wants to be when she grows up, and it gets a bit more complicated.
By the early nineties, singer/songwriter and former Blake Babies member Juliana Hatfield was in a position most aspiring alternative rockers can only dream of: Her solo career was taking off. She was on the cover of Spin and Sassy. Ben Stiller directed the video for her song "Spin the Bottle" from the Reality Bites film soundtrack. She was a featured guest on My So-Called Life. Then, after canceling a European tour to treat severe depression and failing to produce another "hit," she was dropped by her record label and spent a decade releasing well-reviewed albums on indie labels and performing in ever-smaller clubs. A few years ago, now in her thirties, she found herself quietly reading the New Yorker on a filthy couch in the tiny dressing room of a punk club, and asked herself, "Why am I still doing this?"
By turns wryly funny and woundingly sincere, When I Grow Up takes readers behind the scenes of rock life as Hatfield recounts her best and worst days, the origins of her songs, the source of her woes, and her quest to find a new purpose in life. Writing with the same talent for lyricism and poetry found in her songs, Hatfield has produced an engaging literary memoir that will resonate with anyone who's lost faith in a dream.
