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The I Index

Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir

Next in the queue

65

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

43/100

Critics

87/100

Scholars

N/A

Author:

Lucinda Williams

Publisher:

Crown

Date:

April 25, 2023

Lucinda Williams's rise to fame was anything but easy. Raised in a working-class family in the Deep South, she moved from town to town each time her father—a poet, a textbook salesman, a professor, a lover of parties—got a new job, totaling twelve different places by the time she was eighteen. Her mother suffered from severe mental illness and was in and out of hospitals. And when Williams was about a year old, she had to have an emergency tracheotomy—an inauspicious start for a singing career. But she was also born a fighter, and she would develop a voice that has captivated millions.

What The Reviewers Say

Elizabeth Nelson,
The Wall Street Journal
Captivating.
Jon Pareles,
The New York Times Book Review
Williams’s memoir is as flinty, earthy and plain-spoken as her songs.
David Yaffe,
Air Mail
Throughout the book, she tells you who the songs were about—guys who committed suicide, guys who did her wrong, guys who gave her a little pleasure and a lot of pain—but, really, they’re about you. She wrote songs about desire, about flirtation, about bad behavior that felt so good.
Annie Bostrom,
Booklist
Remarkable for its true insight into the author as a person and as an artist.