The provocative transgender advocate and lead singer of the punk rock band Against Me!, provides a searing account of her search for identity and her true self.
"If I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman / My mother once told me she would have named me Laura / I would grow up to be strong and beautiful like her." --"The Ocean," lyrics by Thomas James Gabel
Grace's early years were spent in a disillusioned rage as she grappled with the fact she didn't identify with her body, further complicated by the strain of her parents' unhappy marriage. As a teenager, she struggled with drug addiction and depression, found punk rock and lost herself in the nihilism and anarchism which created the foundation for Against Me!.
With Against Me! came success not to mention the dissolute life of a rock star. The national stardom only further fueled Grace's struggles with identity and addiction. And, finally in 2012 Grace went public withRolling Stone magazine, and began her transition to Laura Jane Grace, leaving Thomas James Gable behind forever.
Peppered throughout with Laura Jane's never-before-published journal entries that reach back to childhood, KILL ME LOUDLY is an intensely personal and revelatory look inside sex, drugs, failed marriages, music, and soul of a punk rock icon.
A savagely candid transgender memoir, and thus far, the only quintessential text regarding Against Me!--one of the most significant punk bands of the aughts and onward. Without a smidgen of sarcasm, I would highly recommend the book to your grandmother, even if she is afraid of transpeople and can't name three Clash songs.
