Publishers Weekly - 14.10.2019

6 MIAMI BOOK FAIR

Debbie Harry shot to international stardom in the late 1970s as the lead singer of the new wave band

Blondie. Now, at age 74, Harry has produced a candid, harrowing, and humorous memoir, Face It, that

looks back at her eventful life—as a child put up for adoption, as a dreamer scuffling in New York,

through Blondie’s rise and dissolution and reunion, and her solo career as a singer and actress. Along

the way, Harry introduces readers to a sizable chunk of the pop pantheon, including Jean-Michel Bas-

quiat, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol, and John Waters.

You say in your book that you’re a private person. Why did you
take on the challenge of writing your memoir at this point in your
life? I sort of got persuaded to do it by my manager, but after I got started,
I enjoyed the process. I think in a way what it’s done for me is just to clear
away a lot of the debris and be done with it. I’m really looking forward to
making some new music and possibly writing some more stories.

You mention in the book that memory is subjective. I’ve done a lot
of interviews with Chris [Stein], my partner, and inevitably we remember
different things. Fortunately, together we sometimes create a better under-
standing of what we’re talking about. But, yes, memory is subjective.

You say you were influenced by Gabriel García Márquez’s Liv-
ing to Tell the Tale. Were there other memoirs that resonated
with you when you were writing this book? For a long time I was
really, really interested in autobiography and biography, and I’ve read
quite a few. And they’re fascinating, but I sort of got out of the habit.

Recently I picked up Chronicles, Bob Dylan’s memoir, and he’s quite a

good writer. And I’ve read Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids, and some of

her sentences are just mind-blowing, so good.

You say in your book that you still love New York, even though

it’s unrecognizable from when you were making your way here

in the 1960s and ’70s. What do you miss most? I don’t know that

I miss any building or restaurant or anything like that because that’s

always in flux in New York. I discovered that after being out on the

road. I’d go out on a tour for a couple of months and come back—and

something would be completely gone, and there would be something

new in its place. That kind of transition and change in New York City is

normal. The things I miss a lot are the enchantment and the drive of the

’70s when I was just getting started with Blondie. That was a really spe-

cial time, getting all that going and me and Chris having this wonderful

relationship and the excitement of the scene and the other bands. It

really was a privilege to be a part of that.

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