Songs of No Provenance

The Erotics of Ambition: An Interview with Lydi Conklin - Chicago Review of Books

Lydi Conklin’s Songs of No Provenance is a great American music novel. It’s a story of love, creative community, and the blurry boundaries around queer and celebrity identity. Joan Vole is an edgy middle-aged folk singer with an obsessive cadre of devoted fans. Upon the revelation that her younger, longtime mentee and occasional lover Paige has gotten signed to the holy grail of  indie folk labels, Joan unthinkingly reveals her shameful lifelong…

Songs of No Provenance

Joan scrambled to dump the pushcart of her possessions into a Coney Island trash can on the beach off the boardwalk way down from her building so her landlord wouldn’t see. Night fell in rumpled black over the Atlantic, her phone buzzing angrily at her hip. She should’ve been gone already, across any bridge, through […]

Queerbaiting and Appropriation Take Center Stage in “Songs of No Provenance” - Electric Literature

Ask me for a book recommendation on the spot, and my mind will probably go blank. I can’t explain it, but when someone who knows I keep up with contemporary literature wants to know what they should read next, suddenly, it’s like I’ve never read a book in my life, or my mind can only access books I wouldn’t recommend. But if I’m given time to consider, Lydi Conklin’s Rainbow Rainbow would be at the top of the list. It’s one of my favorite story …

Arguments around “queerbaiting” show we have to believe in the private self again

Queerbaiting has tricked us into believing that we are entitled to a celebrity’s personal life because we gain something morally through that demand.