Essay Questions

What is the significance of the song which transforms the author into the self-described "punk" indicated in the book's subtitle?

LaPointe isolates one very specific song as being the one which initiates her submergence into the Pacific Northwest punk rock scene of the 1990s. That song is "Star Bellied Boy" by Bikini Kill, sung with fevered energy by the band's iconic singer, Kathleen Hanna. Hanna and Bikini Kill were at the forefront of the Riot Grrrl movement of the time which sought empowerment through honest lyrics about experiences with misogyny and patriarchal oppression. "Star Bellied Boy" in particular hits the author with an emotional wallop with which she can unfortunately identify. Hanna's notoriously powerful singing voice is a cry of anger about the effects of date rape by a boy who claims to be "different from the rest." The memoir is partially fueled by the author's own transformative experience with sexual assault. The effect of repeatedly playing this song is what leads LaPointe to attend her first basement punk rock show.

Who is Comptia Koholowish and what is her significance to an autobiography of the author?

An autobiography by definition is the story of the life of the person writing the story. This memoir is notable for the insertion of several chapters that are completely devoted to the life story of another person entirely. That person is Comptia Koholowski. Comptia is an ancestor of the author who lived in the 1800s. Comptia's story is told in short, fragmented chapters that intrude irregularly into the author's own biographical narrative. They are self-contained stories tracing the life of a Coast Salish woman who managed to survive a smallpox epidemic and married a Scottish sea captain who insisted upon changing her name to Mrs. Jane Johnson. The story of Comptia mirrors that of the author on a thematic level rather than in specifics. The significance of introducing her story into the autobiography of LaPointe is to draw a parallel between generations of indigenous woman forced to assimilate into American society while dealing with the same issues of misogyny and patriarchal oppression and the complexity of self-identity.

Who is Audrey Horne and why does the author develop such a complex emotional identification with her?

This memoir is set in the Pacific Northwest during a time when that region of the country entered strongly into the pop culture zeitgeist as a result of grunge music and appointment-television viewing of the cult series Twin Peaks. LaPointe is very much drawn to the TV show co-created by David Lynch primarily on the basis of a crush on the character of Agent Dale Cooper. She also comes to identify strongly with the character of Audrey Horne, admiring her because she "didn’t appear to be afraid of anything" and describing her as "dark, smart, and strange." Eventually, this connection reaches the point of cosmetic changes to make herself physically similar to the character. This identification becomes even more powerful when Audrey almost becomes the victim of sexual assault by a completely unwitting father which mirrors her own childhood experience of being sexually assaulted by an "uncle" who may or may not have actually been a blood relative. Audrey Horne takes on importance in the narrative because she becomes the iconic portrait of a young woman who was able to successfully avoid such victimization through a demonstration of fearless self-empowerment.