Meet your fierce and funny new comrade-in-arms. In
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, Carrie Brownstein, of punk rock's Sleater-Kinney and IFC's cult TV hit
Portlandia, takes us on a backstage tour of her life, from quirky kid-dorm to angsty teen-dom to the feminist subculture of the riot grrrl scene to not quite superstardom (being her own roadie by day and sleeping on strangers' filthy floors by night). Like anyone who's ever felt adrift, Brownstein craved community. In music she found solace, shelter, and the sense of identity she lacked growing up in the Seattle suburbs among her troubled relatives, including an anorexic mother: "That unlit firecracker I carried around inside me in my youth, eager to ignite it at the slightest provocation, to detonate my whole being and fill the room in a glowing spectacle, found a home in music."
Chronicling Sleater-Kinney's tumultuous history and her own volatility—the tours that electrified fans, one brutal, ballsy concert at a time; the anxiety that often plagued her—Brownstein illuminates the euphoric highs and crushing lows of a life spent both on the fringes and in the spotlight.
