Songs Only You Know: A Memoir

Sean Madigan Hoen

Apr. 2014 · Soho Press

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A Rolling Stone Best Book: This memoir of a troubled young man’s escape into the Detroit punk scene is “a Kerouac-like saga fueled with energy and ecstasy” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
 
Described by Darin Strauss as “Nick Flynn meets Karl Ove Knausgard” and “a book of relentless compassion,” Songs Only You Know is an intense, sprawling memoir, equal parts family tragedy and punk rock road trip.
 
It begins in late 1990s Detroit and spans a decade during which a family fights to hold itself together in the face of insurmountable odds. Sean’s father endangers his career at Ford Motor as he cycles from rehab to binge. His heartsick sister spirals into depression, and his mother relies on her Catholic faith and good works to spare what can be spared. Meanwhile, Sean seeks salvation in a community of eccentrics and outsiders. But the closer Sean comes to realizing his musical dream, the further he drifts from his family and himself.
 

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Sean Madigan Hoen was raised in Dearborn, Michigan, and was formerly a frontman of the Detroit-based bands Leaving Rouge and The Holy Fire. He formed his first band, Thoughts of Ionesco at age seventeen, which Spin magazine called "an art-core mindfuck" in 1998. He is a recent graduate of Columbia University's MFA program, where he also taught creative writing. His first published story, "Label," won the 2011 BOMB Magazine Fiction Prize. He received an honorable mention in the 2011 Glimmer Train Open Fiction Contest and was runner up in the American Literary Review 2011 Fiction contest. Sean now lives in Brooklyn, NY, where he continues to write and play music.