My Own Devices
True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
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4.7 • 26 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
“I love the way Dessa puts words together. In her songs, in her poetry, in her short stories, and now in this beautiful and candid memoir. Wanna be an artist? Get this book.”
--Lin-Manuel Miranda
"Dessa writes beautifully about a wide range of topics, including science, music, and the pain that comes with being in love; it's a surprising and generous memoir by a singular voice."
--NPR, Best Books of 2018
Dessa defies category--she is an intellectual with an international rap career and an inhaler in her backpack; a creative writer fascinated by philosophy and behavioral science; and a funny, charismatic performer dogged by blue moods and heartache. She's ferocious on stage and endearingly neurotic in the tour van. Her stunning literary debut memoir stitches together poignant insights on love, science, and language--a demonstration of just how far the mind can travel while the body is on a six-hour ride to the next gig.
In "The Fool That Bets Against Me," Dessa writes to Geico to request a commercial insurance policy for the broken heart that's helped her write so many sad songs. "A Ringing in the Ears" tells the story of her father building a wooden airplane in their backyard garage. In "'Congratulations,'" she describes the challenge of recording a song for The Hamilton Mixtape in a Minneapolis basement, straining for a high note and hoping for a break. "Call Off Your Ghost" chronicles the fascinating project she undertook with a team of neuroscientists to try to clinically excise romantic feelings for an old flame. Her writing is infused with scientific research, dry wit, a philosophical perspective, and an abiding tenderness for the people she tours with and the people she leaves behind to be on the road.
My Own Devices is an uncompromising and candid account of a life in motion, in music, and in love. Dessa is as compelling on the page as she is onstage, making My Own Devices the debut of a unique and deft literary voice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this intimate essay collection, singer and rap star Dessa, a member of indie hip-hop collective Doomtree, reveals stories of her life as a performer on the road and her quest to find a way to fall out of love. Dessa is brutally honest and self-deprecating. She writes about her rough rise to fame and her creative attempts to rid herself of a longtime love for an unnamed ex-boyfriend whom she also worked with. In "The Fool That Bets Against Me," she writes to Geico requesting an insurance policy on her breaking heart, an organ she believes helped her write so many songs. In "Congratulations," she tells of recording her song for The Hamilton Mixtape, using her struggles to reach a high note as a metaphor for her own personal ups and downs. Dessa weaves in stories from the road in her not-so-glamorous tour van ("We'd pull over in a Walmart parking lot to catch a few hours of sleep... all seven of us pass out sitting up"), her interest in neuroscience (and whether it can be used to excise a man from her memory), and the writings of Bertrand Russell and Mary Oliver. Dessa's fans will be thrilled with these wonderfully crafted essays on music, love, and loss.
Customer Reviews
Great read!
My current read: Dessa’s My Own Devices, chosen as one of NPR’s best books of the year. I heard about this heretofore unfamiliar artist on the radio while on a drive to Starbucks, and during the interview, she briefly mentioned her autobiographical book of multifarious adventures as a rap artist who has released multiple (albeit unheralded) albums, as a live music performer who used to hang out with budding artists on tour and has since moved up to performing with Minneapolis orchestra, as a philosophy major who moonlights as a technical writer, as a creative writer who has reaped literary awards, and recently as DJ of one of my favorite science/psychology podcasts Deeply Human—she is all these, altogether rolled into one electric, multifaceted and extremely talented woman who dares to bushwhack her path and live by her own rules. NPR played a snippet of her single “Who’s Yellen Now?” which is her tribute to one of Biden’s racially diversified appointees. I have no doubt she has liberal political views, one facet of her that was implied but not directly explored in the interview. She’s half-Puerto Rican, and while literature and podcasting are largely race-agnostic, I imagine that her unconventionally “outsider” image as a White woman posed its own challenges in her attempts to be taken seriously as a rapper hiphop artist. Still, she seems proudly assertive of her place and has been successful in every field she has endeavored to gatecrash. I haven’t heard of her prior to her NPR interview, but if Wikipedia were to be believed as accurate, her underground and more-mainstream concerts have been sold out to discerning audiences with more esoteric tastes. I think her silent success owes much to her street cred and gravitas as a product of urban hiphop with very humble, if not inauspicious, beginnings. As soon as I heard about her Minneapolis roots, I listened with rapt attention, and I was enthralled with her multidimensional persona, which is variably cutting edge, intellectual, and daring. Hearing how articulate and profoundly metaphorical she answered the questions thrown at her, I just knew I had to read her book. As one who has been gravitationally pulled (and emotionally torn) into various corners of science, arts, literature, and music, I can totally relate to Dessa.
PS: Despite my notoriety for speed reading, I still have five books I purchased that have remained unread. After reading a sample of this book, I didn’t think twice about buying it, and it leapfrogged to the top of the heap.
Wow
Purchased the audiobook- amazing words- sounds great on audio
Performers life’s can be so interesting, reminded me in some ways of Patti Smith’s two recent great books
If you know nothing of Dessa, it doesn’t matter, you will want more