Sarah Toce
Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile is releasing her first-ever memoir, Broken Horses, through Random House’s Crown imprint on April 6, 2021. The audio version will be released simultaneously and narrated by Carlile.
“I thought it would be about music mostly, but when i started mining my soul for the origins of certain pivotal songs, I found a lot more in there that wasn’t coming through in the songs themselves,” Carlile said. “When I first saw this cover, I looked straight past the picture and immediately emailed the publisher and asked for the word memoir to be removed. It scared me.”
Carlile continued, “I wanted the book to read like a series of events that led me to create art — the lyrics and the songs that so many of you know. … But what happened to me and to the story over time is that, to my horror, it just took me over and became a memoir. I think that word really scared me.”
And for good reason. Carlile had to overcome obstacles to become even remotely comfortable with using the word “memoir” at all.
“I had to overcome some deeply hidden insecurities about not finishing high school … I was back in the ninth grade again, hiding in the bathroom until school started so that the other students wouldn’t see me walking into special education classes,” she shared in her video message.
“I think the word memoir also makes me uncomfortable because I’m relatively young and hopefully only halfway through my life,” she said, later adding, “To put it politely, I have always known that I have had an interesting life up to this point. Navigating things like poverty, addiction and rejection have given me a unique perspective and a twisted sense of humor.”
The title is deeply personal, too. Carlile revealed that her six-year-old daughter, Evangeline, named the memoir.
“More often than not, the broken things are the very most intact,” Carlile examined.
Watch Carlile’s video announcement below.
