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A Novel
by Lydi Conklin
A suspenseful, wildly engaging debut novel by the award-winning author of Rainbow Rainbow, following a musician spiraling in self-doubt and self-searching after a night—and a relationship—gone wrong.
Songs of No Provenance tells the story of Joan Vole, an indie folk singer forever teetering on the edge of fame, who flees New York after committing a shocking sexual act onstage that she fears will doom her career. Joan seeks refuge at a writing camp for teenagers in rural Virginia, where she's forced to question her own toxic relationship to artmaking—and her complicated history with a friend and mentee—while finding new hope in her students and a deepening intimacy with a nonbinary artist and fellow camp staff member.
A propulsive character study of a flawed and fascinating artist, Songs of No Provenance explores issues of trans nonbinary identity, queer baiting and appropriation, kink, fame hunger, secrecy and survival, and the question of whether a work of art can exist separately from its artist.
"Conklin's comedy of manners has a shrewd undercurrent, and much of the novel's charm derives from the teens' easy banter with one another...It's a winner." —Publishers Weekly
"Readers' reactions to the abundant pee talk will vary, but it's difficult to assess this book without mentioning it. A disappointing work from a talented author." —Kirkus Reviews
"Songs of No Provenance is an astonishing novel, without artifice and unflinching in its presentation of its subject in her full humanity." —Foreword Reviews
"Conklin's vivid debut novel, following their story collection Rainbow Rainbow, portrays a complicated musician at a personal and professional crossroads ... Conklin crafts an absorbing exploration of the push-and-pull of the authentic self." —Booklist
"Daring, darkly funny, and laced with rich textural detail, Songs of No Provenance proves that Conklin is just getting started, and anyone interested in the artistic experience should be seeking their work out." —BookPage
"Lydi Conklin has gathered up slippery ideas about art-making and desire and mentorship and gender and plunged an antihero for the ages through the heart of them all. Songs of No Provenance is a raw, empathetic novel of exceptional power." —Carmen Maria Machado
"Joan Vole is an indelible character, flawed and contradictory and utterly compelling. She is the beating heart of Songs of No Provenance, an expansive novel about ambition and art, love and transgression. Lydi Conklin writes with verve, precision, and the kind of tenderness that takes your breath away." —Katie Kitamura, author of Audition
"Thrilling and utterly engrossing, this is an extraordinary debut from a writer endlessly astute about shame, harm, the possibility of repair, and the complexities of ambition. Reading Songs of No Provenance, I thought of D.W. Winnicott saying, 'It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found.' Conklin's novel helps light paths to lead readers out of hiding." —R. O. Kwon, author of Exhibit
"This novel is a wild ride! A ribald romp asking profound questions about art-making, kink, self-deception, repair, and grace. Joan Vole is an unforgettable character and Lydi Conklin is a daring, delightful writer. I'll read anything they write." —Claire Vaye Watkins, author of I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
"Songs of No Provenance is an unflinching masterpiece of transgressive empathy. Mining the rawest margins of shame and accountability, Conklin's visceral prose is able to hold even the thorniest facets of human experience with tenderness—which lets us get close enough to see the complex, redemptive possibilities only intimacy (and Conklin's skill) can make visible. This brilliant debut novel is a testimony: the very aspects of ourselves we fear wall us off from others—our kinks, secrets, jealousies, failures—may instead be doors of connection." —Alissa Nutting, author of Made for Love
This information about Songs of No Provenance was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lydi Conklin is the author of Rainbow Rainbow, which was longlisted for The Story Prize & the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. They have received a Stegner Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award, three Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Writing Fulbright in Poland, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, scholarships from Bread Loaf, and fellowships from Emory, MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, and elsewhere. Their fiction has appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, and The Paris Review. They've drawn comics for The New Yorker, The Believer, Lenny Letter, and elsewhere. They are currently the Zell Visiting Professor of Fiction at the University of Michigan.
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