Moby’s memoir, Porcelain, recalls a decade of hardship for the American musician culminating with the release of Play, the record he believed would be his swansong but which went on to be a multi-million seller following its release in May 1999.
Penguin Press has just released what the publicity describes as `a piercingly tender, funny, and harrowing account,’ detailing the journey which`the poor, skinny white kid' from Connecticut made to ultimately conquer the New York club scene of the late ’80s and ’90s. (Curiously, given the ensuing trajectory, he had been born in New York in 1965.)
A devout Christian, a vegan, and teetotaller, the musician’s lifestyle was completely at variance with the hedonistic club scene, with AIDS and crack hidding the headlines every day. Porcelain runs to 416 pages and is divided into five sections, beginning with, Dirty Mecca, which details the musician's exploits in one year, 1989-1990.
Cryptic chapter titles are employed such as One Hundred Square Feet, Vegan Cookies, Bloody Skateboard Wheels and Smeared Black Magic Marker. The following four sections track the years up until 1995.
In the course of the book, the musician, whose real name is Richard Melville Hall recalls his impoverished upbringing in Darien, Connecticut. He writes how he would accompany his mother to the laundromat in Stratford, where he remembers her smoking Winston cigarettes while folding clothes.
"My mom had been unemployed for over a year and her last relationship had ended when her boyfriend tried to stab her to death," he writes in a matter-of-fact, low key style that cannot lessen the sense of drama and misfortune that characterises Moby's early years.
