The Perfect Pussy
Front Woman
Lends Her Library
Meredith Graves, front woman of
critical darling hardcore band Perfect
Pussy hails from upstate New York.
She has since moved to Brooklyn and
is currently touring with her band.
She’s also a tour de force on her own,
performing spoken word, making an
appearance at Smith College to discuss
shaun regan
gender and authenticity in music, and
writing for multiple music and lifestyle
sites. Fascinated to know what else
makes Graves tick, we asked what books
accompanied her on a recent tour.
We just got back from a month long tour of Europe
3. A Moveable Feast
and, since I didn’t have cell service on long drives, I
Hemingway is awesome. Our tour started in Paris, but I didn’t read this until we’d
ended up reading five books in the course of a month
— four classics and one essential piece of music
writing, just to break up the nerdy stuff.
moved on to Berlin. I’d read Fitzgerald earlier in the year (Gatsby, This Side of
Paradise, ANDTender is the Night- I kind of had a moment) and I thought I had
him on lock until I read Hemingway’s essay about taking him to the Louvre to
assuage his severe anxieties about his small penis. Between that and the descriptions of hanging out in Gertrude Stein’s apartment, this book made me ache for a
time machine. Also, I read it in a few hours — short books are awesome.
4. Our Band Could Be Your Life
I read this book cover to cover probably five times when I was in college and cited
1. Pride and Prejudice
it in loads of papers, but it’s been years since I’ve revisited it. I’m completely glad
Based on the people I’ve known who love this book, I was expecting a
I did, I honestly feel like I understand it so much better now. When the subject at
dusty bodice-ripper — turns out this book is funny as hell! It deals very
hand is the arts, a truly good writer will tell you the facts in a manner as creative
directly with issues of class and gender, all filtered through the experi-
as their subject. This book is 100 percent history and facts, but presented in such
ences of a cynical protagonist who harbors a healthy distrust of men.
a way that at times, it’s really a page turner. I learned new things about bands I’ve
The younger Bennett sisters are my favorite, because they’re the exact
loved for more than a decade. I suggest this book for everybody that likes music.
same as any 13- or 14-year-old girl of today — obsessed with the latest
fashions, raising hell, and chasing boys. The love story isn’t bad, either
5. Anna Karenina
— Elizabeth Bennett outright refuses to settle, she waits to make sure
With two main plots and countless subplots, a web of relationships so nuanced
the man she’s in love with is actually not a total goober, and thus ends up
I had to look up a flow chart, and the two most interesting main characters I’ve
with her intellectual equal.
ever encountered — Anna, a beloved member of high society whose affair and
subsequent fall from grace finally crack her elegant facade and send her head-
2. Wuthering Heights
long into mental illness, and Levin, a former government figure and landowner
I was having a Kate Bush moment and decided to roll with it, not