”I remembered how Renee used to say that real life was a bad country song, except bad country songs are believable and real life isn’t. Everybody knows what it’s like to drive while crying; feeling like a bad country song is part of why it sucks. There was an empty house on the other side of this drive, and I had no idea what it would be like to try and go inside it. There was nobody there. I wasn’t driving back home – just back.” [page 149]

In Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time [2007, Crown Publishers, 238 pages] Rob Sheffield doesn’t just describe life as a bad country song, he’s lived it. His wife Renee died suddenly and tragically at 31. After less than 6 years of marriage he found himself a widower at an age when many men are still in a period of extended adolescence.

His grief is profound and soul shattering. He barely functions and time passes with little recognition or acknowledgment. He lives in a state of shattered stasis; not moving forward or backward, just breathing. He feels the pain of loss acutely, sleeps little, and eats alone; his grief compounded by feelings of shame, confusion, and failure. Thankfully, there are single tables at restaurants, all night grocery stores, and musical escapes or Sheffield might not have made it. Friends and family are concerned and helpful, but not as aware of his state of mind.

”It was hard to explain to my friends what was happening. When my friends and family would ask how I was doing, I stalled or stuttered or lied. Sometimes I could feel the glaciers shifting inside me, and I hoped they were melting, but they were just making themselves comfortable. All these monstrous contortions in me were warping the outside of my body, I was sure. No doubt people could spot me a block away and know that I had lived past my till-death-do-you-part date.” [page 178]

If grief is an all encompassing process, and it is to many people, then that process can never be fully understood since grief is such an individual experience. With his memoir, Sheffield attempts to shed light on the experience of widowhood through the eyes of a young man.

The memoir explores not only love and grief as a duality, but also how music is a touchstone in our lives in ways we sometimes care to forget. Good songs and memories become something else when the memories are all you have left.

The genesis for the book was a mix tape in Renee’s now boxed-up belongings. Mix tapes were part of their relationship as both were heavily into music as students, journalists, and college radio hosts at WTVU in Charlottesville at the University of Virginia. He met his wife while a graduate student there.

Sheffield listens to the tapes and the memories unfold.

Big Star, Pavement, Nirvana, Sleater-Kinney, L7, The Smiths, Blake Babies, Unrest, Sonic Youth, REM, Belly, Grenadine, The Pooh Sticks, Royal Trux, and others make appearances on the mix tapes. Sheffield enumerates a number of occasions and rules where mix tapes are a welcome addition to someone’s music collection: the party tape, the I want you tape, the we’re doing it, awesome tape, and others, such as the road trip tape, the universal hate my job tape and the break-up tape. In addition, there is the radio tape, and the walking tape as well. There are undoubtedly others, but these are Sheffield’s categories.

And, he mentions that his own track record with mix tapes is spotty: for every track that works, others fall flat. Such is the trial and error nature of making a tape for someone else. Mix tapes are (or were) a way to get to know someone without the expense of dating on some level. A group of someone’s favorite tracks can tell you more about them than is apparent at face value.

And in his reminiscing about his time with Renee, he also discusses what married people fight about, such as the telephone, money, reproduction, words, figure skating, TV, dog, air conditioning, and, of course, fighting about fighting.

He also paints a rather vivid picture of life in Charlottesville when the music industry was different and bands were more approachable. There was an intimacy amongst fans and their favorite bands and Charlottesville had a thriving nightlife devoted to independent music.

Eventually, Sheffield is forced to move on as remaining in Charlottesville is difficult with all the reminders of his past life with Renee. He moves to NYC where he currently lives and writes for Rolling Stone, and other publications.

He has since remarried (to another music fan and fellow college radio station host from Charlottesville), and undoubtedly, the mix tape remains a staple of his musical arsenal, though now technology has replaced the weatherworn cassette with CDs or iPod track lists.

Love is a Mix Tape can be a tough read in spots; it’s incredibly sad and Sheffield writes quite openly about his grief and the process that he went through to regain a sense of equilibrium. But, more than that, it’s also a book about music and love (three stars).

Sources
http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/mixtape/index.html




Recommended: Yes