I Sing to Use the Waiting: A Collection of Essays About the Women Singers Who’ve Made Me Who I Am

Pace’s energetic if unwieldy debut explores their lifelong kinship with female musicians. Guiding readers through the music of Nina Simone, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Cat Power, and Rihanna, among others, Pace attempts to explain the sanctuary music has given them as they’ve grappled with OCD and lifelong questions about their gender and sexuality. The 14 dizzying essays swirl together music criticism, personal memories, Talmudic discussions about Kabbalah (via Madonna), theories of Lacan and Freud, references to Frank O’Hara’s poetry, and celebrity gossip. “While a song plays on a loop in my mind,” Pace writes, “I’m free from the infinity of anxious and obsessive-self hating and self-punishing thoughts that would otherwise spiral there.” Occasionally, Pace’s beautiful prose and palpable passion make this soar, as in “The Ballad of Robyn and Whitney,” which analyzes the alleged lesbian relationship between Houston and her assistant. Too often, however, Pace gets lost in the weeds, failing to tame the project’s scope enough for readers to get their minds around it. The result is a glorious muddle. (Jan.)