Juliana Hatfield spares no one in candid tell-all When I Grow Up

By Laura Pontillo
Published: October 14th, 2008 | 3:55pm

It might seem strange for a 41-year-old woman to title her memoir When I Grow Up. But if that woman is rock stalwart Juliana Hatfield, then it makes perfect sense. After dreaming of becoming a rock star as a young girl in suburban Boston and actually seeing those dreams come true, what’s next? What does the former It girl want to be when she grows up?

Hatfield’s career commercially peaked in the early ’90s with a handful of modest hits such as “My Sister” and “Spin the Bottle.” Hatfield takes a retrospective look back through more than two decades of her musical career. When I Grow Up alternates between a tour of Hatfield’s side band Some Girls a half-dozen years ago and the highs and lows of her career.

While the memoir is no lurid tell-all, Hatfield’s critical prose spares no one — not even herself. On why she keeps playing music, Hatfield says, “I don’t perform because it makes me feel good. I do it because I am deeply troubled and insecure. I want attention, and acceptance, and love, but then when I get it, it’s not what I wanted.”

Surprisingly, Hatfield’s chilling descriptions of her long-term struggles with anorexia and depression are not difficult to digest. Even a chapter devoted to Hatfield’s fantasy of jumping out of windows and another of slipping to 100 pounds are not gratuitous, but rather illuminating of the seemingly aloof rocker.

Not all of Hatfield’s self-examinations are somber; she also fills us in on those juicy tidbits. The woman who stated she was a virgin to Interview in her twenties explains her motivations behind the infamous comment. She also describes how P.J. Harvey inspired “Spin the Bottle.”

By the end, we still don’t know exactly what Hatfield will do “when she grows up,” but it ends on an ambivalent yet hopeful note, much like the musician herself.

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ABOUT THE BOOK
When I Grow Up: A Memoir (Wiley)
by Juliana Hatfield
336 pages, $24.95