Review & Recommendation
I recently finished Tegan and Sara Quin's High School, a deliciously reflective account of the twin indie singers' accounts of that period of their lives. It dives deep into the specifics: the intensity of each day following the blossoming of a new relationship, told as if the writer is experiencing that first love anew; the learning of the self unfolding as it becomes conscious to itself; and, of course, the beginnings of the musical talent that has carried the artists throughout their careers.
It is a thick, satisfyingly, original take on the traditional memoir. Its experimentalism does not come from its form or narrative progression necessarily—those all remain linear (I think of memoirs like Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts as an alternative to that). Instead, it comes out of the dual perspectives offered, and the status of each twin as individuals shaping their lives by and through the other. The intensity of newfound emotion—pain, desire for secrecy, need for independence—all becoming intensified by their necessary togetherness. It is a beautiful play at reliance cohabitating with individuation.
They map of their feelings at every step of the narrative. The visceral effect of Tegan's fear that she might be in love with her best friend, the tenderness of Sara's half-public adoration for her first love, the admirable decisiveness with which the twins seemed to hold themselves when faced with the world. It is a personality that still emanates when they perform live. In concerts, their dynamic is co-generative, each riffing naturally with the other—their dynamic built as spectacle. At the same time, the memoir reveals the starkly personal place from which this dynamic emerges: they have always been both a public and private force.
Reading the book over several days produced a deliciously cozy experience. At once deeply reflective and fast-paced, it was a memoir I will hold dear.
P.S. It has made me nostalgic for something I never experienced—staying up late on the phone until the cord is disconnected. I experienced a childhood during the in-between space of mobile phones but not yet smart phones. It was a time when I could email freely, but went months forgetting to check the text messages on my flip phone. The Quins describe their obsessive attachment to the corded phone, as a way to call friends and crushes—the line being the only source of connection to the outside world. And now, with our endless channels of access, I cannot help but long for a time when a person's voice in your ear was the sole means of instant connection.
References:
Tegan and Sara Quin, High School, Simon & Schuster (2019).
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