Why Karen Carpenter Matters

A PITCHFORK MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR

This is a radical, literary, and deeply intimate insight into one of the twentieth century's most vital vocalists. Maggie Nelson observes that "Tongson serves up a number of astute observations about fantasy, projection, longing, normalcy, and aberrance." Pitchfork hails it as a work that "deftly weaves memoir, history, and cultural criticism to highlight the dynamic relationship between artists and listeners."

In the 1960s and 70s, America's music scene was often characterised by raucous excess, tragically reflected in the overdoses of young superstars like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Simultaneously, the uplifting harmonies and sunny lyrics that propelled Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard, to international fame masked a different kind of tragedy – the underconsumption that led to Karen's death at the age of thirty-two due to 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 thrived – and Karen Carpenter's home ground of Southern California. Tongson reveals the profound significance that the Carpenters' chart-topping, seemingly white-washed musical fantasies of 'normal love' hold 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 also finding the beauty in the singer's all-too-brief life. 4Columns describes it as "engrossing . . . a triumphant delight," while Exclaim! calls it "heartfelt . . . excellent . . . breathtaking." Literary Hub suggests it "will resonate with readers who have never even heard of Carpenter."