Whether they love, hate or have never heard of musician Moby's technopop musical stylings, readers will fall hard for his memoir of growing up, chasing elusive dreams and marching to a different drummer.
Although his family tree includes Herman Melville, Moby began life humbly with an impoverished childhood in Connecticut as the only child of a widow. From an early age, he worshipped all music and yearned to live in New York City, where the cultural scene flourished despite epidemics of AIDS and crack use. Moby narrates his struggle, from the late '80s through the '90s, to find and keep an audience, from his first gig DJing at Mars to touring Europe, where he played for thousands of ecstatic ravers, only to return to the U.S. and find the club scene drastically changed and no longer receptive to his music. More than a story about a musician's art, though, Porcelain also brings to life the debauched NYC of the '90s and Moby's vacillations between virtue and vice, particularly in regards to sobriety and the staunch Christian beliefs of his youth.
Perhaps the music industry's gain was the literary world's loss. Moby recounts serious and hilarious stories with equal ease, provoking giggles with memories of DJing an orgy and encounters with city rats and roaches, then switching gears to give a raw and heartrending account of losing a parent. The journey ends abruptly in 1999; let's hope a second volume from this multitalented artist is planned. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads