Songs of No Provenance

(Hardback)

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Description

Bold, electrifying debut about a troubled indie folksinger for fans of Torrey Peters and Melissa Broder, set in a seductive music underworld reminiscent of Patti Smith or Viv Albertine. A suspenseful, wildly engaging debut novel following a musician spiraling in self-doubt and self-searching after a night - and a relationship - gone wrong. Songs of No Provenance tells the story of Joan Vole, an indie folk singer forever teetering on the edge of fame, who flees New York after committing a shocking sexual act onstage that she fears will doom her career. With the threat of an internet storm looming over her, Joan seeks refuge at a writing camp for teenagers in rural Virginia, where she's forced to question her own toxic relationship to artmaking - and her complicated history with a friend and mentee - while finding new hope in her students and a deepening intimacy with a nonbinary artist and fellow camp staff member. Lydi Conklin boldly explores kink, shame, queer appropriation, fame hunger, cancel culture, trans nonbinary identity and how to make art without ego, all the while asking how Joan might forge a new future for herself. Suffused with flashbacks to a musical underworld as seductive as it is seedy, Songs of no Provenance is a visceral, gutsy and profound debut novel about love, self-acceptance and clawing oneself to safety.

Reviews

'Lydi Conklin has gathered up slippery ideas about art-making and desire and mentorship and gender and plunged an antihero for the ages through the heart of them all. Songs of No Provenance is a raw, empathetic novel of exceptional power' * Carmen Maria Machado *
'Joan Vole is an indelible character, flawed and contradictory and utterly compelling. She is the beating heart of Songs of No Provenance, an expansive novel about ambition and art, love and transgression. Lydi Conklin writes with verve, precision, and the kind of tenderness that takes your breath away' * Katie Kitamura *
'Thrilling and utterly engrossing, this is an extraordinary debut from a writer endlessly astute about shame, harm, the possibility of repair, and the complexities of ambition. Reading Songs of No Provenance, I thought of D. W. Winnicott saying, It is a joy to be hidden but disaster not to be found. Conklins novel helps light paths to lead readers out of hiding.' * RO Kwon *
'Lydi Conklins protagonist Joan is unforgettable, a raw-voiced indy musician whose persona is tougher than her heart, and who struggles to understand her own complex identity. This bold, funny, moving novel follows Joan through wild upheaval to unexpected and exhilarating reconciliation.' * Claire Messud *
'With astonishing emotional precision, an endlessly captivating antiheroine, and surprises at every turn, the radical and profound Songs of No Provenance explores the unruliness of desire, the insatiable need to create, and the truth we owe to ourselves and those we love. Lydi Conklin is one of my favorite writers and I cant wait for the world to discover their singular vision.' * Jessamine Chan *
'This novel is a wild ride! A ribald romp asking profound questions about art-making, kink, self-deception, repair, and grace. Joan Vole is an unforgettable character and Lydi Conklin is a daring, delightful writer. Ill read anything they write' * Claire Vaye Watkins, author of I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness *
'Songs of No Provenance is an unflinching masterpiece of transgressive empathy. Mining the rawest margins of shame and accountability, Conklin's visceral prose is able to hold even the thorniest facets of human experience with tenderness which lets us get close enough to see the complex, redemptive possibilities only intimacy (and Conklin's skill) can make visible. This brilliant debut novel is a testimony: the very aspects of ourselves we fear wall us off from others our kinks, secrets, jealousies, failures may instead be doors of connection' * Alissa Nutting, author of Made for Love *
'Crackles with energy... frenetic and compulsive, unrelentingly good.' * Curtis Garner *

Author Bio

Lydi Conklin has received a Stegner Fellowship, four Pushcart Prizes, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award, a Creative Writing Fulbright in Poland, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, work-study and tuition scholarships from Bread Loaf, and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Sewanee Writers Conference, Emory University, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, and elsewhere. Their fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, One Story, McSweeney's, American Short Fiction, and VQR. They have drawn cartoons for The New Yorker and Narrative Magazine, and graphic fiction for The Believer, Lenny Letter, and the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. They've served as the Helen Zell Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan and are now an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Vanderbilt University. Their story collection, Rainbow Rainbow, was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award and The Story Prize.