Singing Songs

by Meg Tilly

Singing Songs is the masterful realization of a young girl's journey to adulthood in a chaotic, abusive, and fragmented world; an affirmation of a child's ability to use her judgement and imagination alone to light her way. It is the story of a strange and beautiful metamorphosis and a profound statement about the dark and secret places of family life.

Genres: Fiction, Mental Illness, Abuse

242 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1994

About the author

Also see Sara Flynn

Meg Tilly may be best known for her acclaimed Golden Globe-winning lead performance in the movie Agnes of God. Other screen credits include The Big Chill, Valmont, and more recently, Bomb Girls, and Netflix's movie War Machine, starring Brad Pitt. After publishing six standout young adult and literary women's fiction novels, the award-winning author/actress decided to write the kind of books she loves to read--romance novels. Tilly has three grown children and resides with her husband in the Pacific Northwest. She is currently at work writing the next Solace Island novel.

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know people are hesitant to recommend this book. I want to strongly recommend this book, to anyone that wants to understand how to protect kids from creeps. This book shows you what goes on inside a child's mind. Why they don't understand. It shows how they can be manipulated. It also shows why they don't say anything. The subject is dark and heartbreaking. There is joy inside this book. I loved Katie a lot. She was so funny and defiant. I did feel that she developed an unhealthy need for punishment. Maybe it comforted her on some level, but she was also a rebellious spitfire. I also loved Anna. She was so brave and tried so hard to save her sister. I loved the connection the kids had. This book is the kind of book that you have epiphanies over long after you read the book. I still feel angry about the abusers.

[KillerBunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meg Tilly write kid voices like no others.

[Pariskarol · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've ever read. This is a thinly disguised autobiography of the young actress who played in The Big Chill, and she blows the whistle on those who neglected and abused her and her sister (actress Jennifer Tilly) when they were little girls. It's an interesting story, but the remarkable part is that it is amazingly, masterfully written and then it took Tilly about 12 years to write another book. It was as if she wrote what she had to write, said what she had to say, and that was that.

Later when I read Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life several years later, I thought of Singing Songs. About This Boy's Life, I wrote a college paper exploring the notion of identity (do we put it on like clothing?). Now I'd like to go back and read this one again looking at identity.

Tilly's written a few other novels now, and it's time I picked up her work again.

[Nicole Rubbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my second book by actress and author Meg Tilly. The narrator Anna lives the life of a poverty stricken abused child. Her perspective not only talks about herself, but the abuse and hardships that brothers and sisters endured as well.
The story was a sad and chilling tale of heartache and strength. It was sadder knowing that Meg Tilly stated that even though it’s fictional, the story could have easily been her own.

[Nicholas Beck · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story of resilience amidst at times horrific physical, emotional, sexual abuse. If only a smidge of Meg Tilly's story is factual and not fictional, it's truly disturbing. Her coming of age story is conveyed, I thought authentically in the voice of a child and for the most part effectively. Some people really lack the skills to be parents and some feel the need to assert their power over children in the form of abuse. This is Meg Tilly's story of what that looks like.

[Loveliest Evaris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow... Where to begin?

This book is told in the eyes of Anna, and her life with her asthmatic mother and quite a handful of siblings. The book starts out with her mother marrying a man named Mr. Smith, whom she quickly adopts as her "Daddy". 'Daddy' has three other children from a previous marriage, Faith, Nick, and Joy, along with Jack, who is not in the book until later. Anna also has Susan, Matthew, and Katie, her blood siblings, so as you can see, the family is pretty big.

What unfolds is a gut-wrenching, head-shaking, O-shaping tale of abuse within the household. Spankings and slaps and punches are commonplace as methods of punishing the children, even if they have done nothing wrong; Daddy administers 90% of these beatings, but the children learn that it is simply the way of things, and that you just have to stay out of the way in order to not get hit.

Despite the terrible abuse, negligence, ignorance, and melodramatics, the children, especially Anna, somehow enjoy their childhood. They play dress up, they play "night club" and "restaurant"; they adopt a baby deer and keep it in their bathtub for a time. Their bittersweet naivete of everything going on around them seems to be taken in and brushed off as the way of things. Not that they think that this is how all parents treat their children, but that this is just how they do things in that family.

But the abuse becomes more and more sinister and disturbing.. Anna is sexually abused by her step brother, Jack (19 years old) when she was around.. oh, 6? .. and her grandfather also masturbated in front of her... along with her other step brother, Nick. It is disturbing to me, because Anna and the others are exposed to so much... innapropriate going-ons... Their father running out of the shower naked--completely naked--and then spanking Katie for not running fast enough and escaping him when he was in his "spanking mood"; their mother is really no help. She doesn't cook, and the house is usually a pigsty, from what I infer. Sometimes the children have to sleep in the dog house, sometimes in the shed, sometimes outside until winter time comes around. To me that is very ... wrong. It was the 60s and 70s (that's the time period I think this is based in) so I guess things were different back then, but still... Baths like, once a month, and it was just like pioneer times: Adults go first, then the kids, one at a time, and by the last child it is all lukewarm (or possibly cold) with dead skin flakes floating on the surface (yuck!)..

What really got me was how stupid these kids were. It's not their fault, but it's like this family was a bunch of red neck hillbillies. Their cruel and brutish way of disciplining their children, the fact that they only got to bathe ONCE A MONTH, the fact that they repeatedly verbally and psychologically tortured their children with teasing and taunting (not much, but still a few instances stick out in my head), along with the disgusting 'gentlemen' --I use that word loosely-- that seem to be around every corner. Anna seems to be attracting all sorts of shady characters, the very least her family. Oh and did I mention that the family seems to be friends with, or consists of pedophiles and child molestors? Almost every boy in this family has a thing for children, and it's freaking disgusting. It's almost like a hereditary disease or something. Just sickening.

The book gets worse, especially "Daddy", whom, after many disappointing and disturbing events, gets demoted to "Richard" (his real name) by Anna, since she hates him. He molested and possibly raped (wait, not possibly, he pretty much DID) Anna's older sister, Susan.. the mother didn't really do much except make him sleep in the basement ... 'Daddy'/Richard is one of the sorriest pieces of crap I have ever seen. He beats his children like a drill seargant, but then ends up bawling and crying during shouting matches with his wife after he loses the upper hand or he is reminded what a big failure he is. He even, as Anna put it -this is paraphrased- 'made a big show of his shotgun and waving it around for his trip into the woods, like he was gonna kill himself.. Tried to get someone to pull him back and tell him that we need you, Daddy.. don't kill yourself' .. Pathetic, passive-aggressive, spineless, cowardly bastard he is.

This book will give you a clear insight into a family with dark secrets, especially ones that you dare not think about. Maybe it'll remind you of your own demons you have to hide from everyone else, including yourself... A harrowing tale of the tragic situation of children in an abusive and hectic household and the almost God-like magic that they possess that keeps them ignorant and stupid from truly realizing their situation and the harsh and terrible reality that is their childhood and family life.

[Safiya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very very traumatizing but made some amazing backpacking memories.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book for writers wanting to crack the code on how to create a believable child-narrator voice.

It’s also a book for readers wanting to know what goes on in the head of a child navigating an unholy mess of a family.

Little Anna is no “unreliable narrator.” Her nose for truth makes her as reliable as any soul who knows who does and doesn’t love her. When Anna, with her limited experience, shows us what she sees, we easily fill in the rest. It’s as simple as imagining the missing but familiar half of a torn photograph.

Voice and tale kept me riveted to the page and to this extraordinary young survivor, full of grit and fury.

I was inspired to find a used copy of this 30-year-old memoir by award-winning memoirist Sonja Livingston’s compelling book review published on Brevity: Waxing Episodic: On Meg Tilly, Early Trauma and the Rise of the Fragmented Memoir—which you can find by searching on the title and Sonja's name.

[Aimee Massey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some say this book is autobiographical; maybe it is, but given that the author is an actress by training and profession, I imagine there's quite a bit of dramatization going on here. I would hope so, anyway.
The writing is all right, nothing to really get excited over one way or another. But it seems that Tilly wanted to cram as much dysfunction and abuse and nastiness into it as she could, and that's what we got, a whole catalogue of depravity, and that began to seem like the whole point of the book. The characters weren't very well-developed, and even Anna, the narrator and the one we're supposed to root for, was uninteresting and seemed to exist only to be a victim. Yes, she had a big imagination, but so what? The book is (presumably, more less) a work of imagination, why make an imaginary character's imaginary world such a big part of a story that already doesn't ring true?

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meg Tilly's writing is amazing! Very poetic and lyrical, while at the same time, simple, but loaded with feeling and emotion. The story is blatantly sad at times. Other times, you have to interpret situations through the eyes of a child. Sadly, this story could easily be the story of any child in any family. We don't get to choose what family we are born into.

[Lori Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in one sitting. I've heard it is partly autobiographical and if it is, wow for dysfunction. Many pages left me uncomfortable..but that's also why I liked the book. I appreciate books that crack open my brain and make me think or feel things in a new context.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tilly brilliantly captures the sometimes naive voice and view of a child. While some of the vignettes aren't exactly stories, more snapshots of memories, we really do get a vivid look into little "Anna's" heartbreaking life. The writing is somewhat clumsy in places, but whether or not it's intentional to portray childlike rambling, is up for interpretation. I haven't read anything else by Tilly, so I don't know if it's the deliberate work of a master crafter or if it's just writing inexperience. Whatever it is, it allowed me to befriend a young, vulnerable girl who was tough enough to survive, and even challenge, the many horrors she experienced. I wanted to hold her hand, give her hugs, and beat up anyone who hurt her. Since Tilly was able to make me laugh, cry, wince, and keep reading, I'd say she's a good writer regardless of some minor technical fumbling. She's obviously a resilient and remarkable woman to have come from such a dark place and yet still accomplish all that she has. Inspiring, really.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is well written, but the subject matter was just too intense for me. As a professional in the field of child abuse prevention, I think of myself as aware of such issues, but I was surprised at how disturbing this story was and how personally it affected me. The story chronicles the childhood (ages 4-11) of Anna, who experienced physical and verbal abuse, conditions of neglect, and sexual abuse from both adult and child perpetrators. Perhaps I am more sensitive to this topic as I have young children of my own. I had planned to read Meg Tilly's other book, Gemma, but I have heard that Gemma is more graphic that Singing Songs and I will not read it.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tilly doesn't seem to have a clear grasp on the age of the (purportedly autobiographical) main character in her story. One moment the young girl is having her first romantic kiss with a young boy and the next she expresses joy at being able to touch her feet to the ground from her bus seat. Such inconsistencies plague this novel; these and the extremely short chapters detract from the emotional power of Tilly's writings.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in one sitting because I said to myself, "I'll stop once I get to the end of chapter that isn't really sad", but the whole book is really sad so I just read it all.
It's from the point of view of a child (5-11) with a lot of siblings and poor, horribly abusive parents. I didn't have any idea what I was getting myself in for and it was uncomfortable and disturbing. Moments of sweetness and weirdness.

[Brian Howald · Rating 2 out of 5]

Movie actress Meg Tilly`s paeon to abuse, suffering and sadness was painful to read. Although it was marketed as a novel it came across more like a 12-step journal. On screen Ms. Tilly brought charm and vibrance to films that had none. Her words and stories, however, including this one, could use a tad more charisma.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not feel this story was well written, i could not connect with any of the characters.

[Blackwidow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have given it 5 stars if it had a proper ending. There's no resolution so you won't have any closure on what happens to each character

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It sickens me to know there are people that do this to children. They deserve a slow, painful death.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A heartbreaking view of childhood sexual and physical abuse.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this short novel, which many, myself included, believe to be at least semi-autobiographical, was nothing short of heart wrenching. And I wanted to find this family, to hold each child tight and tell them it was going to be okay. And then I wanted to pull myself up to my full 5'2", storm into that house & slap the crap out of that mother. What I wanted to do do the father ... well, they can't put you in jail for what you're thinking ... can they?
Meg Tilly is talented, as an actress & writer. The girl can tell a story, even one as harrowing as this one in a way that had me mesmerized even as struggled to finish this book. More than anything I hope ... no, I pray that she has found healing through her work.

[Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's tragic that kids are still raised with this kind of abuse and that so called parents are still able to get away with it. This loosely-disguised autobiography is haunting.

[Bree · Rating 3 out of 5]

What this book does, it does well.

[Caitlin Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

"When I first came out with Singing Songs, I said, oh, 100 percent fiction, because I’m such a fabulous writer I can just pluck these things from the ethers. Actually, I was Anna. When I told my editor we were pretty close to the end of it and I said actually, you need to know, this is my life and I need help now fictionalizing it. So we met in San Francisco, Carol DeSanti -- she’s wonderful. We stayed in a bed and breakfast and we just locked ourselves inside for three days with an atlas and figured out ways to blur the edges. I changed sexes, birth order, one child taken away here and added there. Different places. We did that but then I spent the whole book tour afraid… I didn’t enjoy any part of it because I was terrified that somebody would find out the truth." - Meg Tilly

One Halloween, I was only able to go to a few houses because I was sick. I took my birthday money (My birthday is 5 days before Halloween) and bought more candy the next day, and put it with my 'real' candy that I got from trick-or-treating. It wasn't the same. None of it was the same. My trick-or-treating candy was special. It contained the very spirit of Halloween. The candy that I bought was just candy, and when mixed together, what-ever magic I possessed was diluted and uncertain.
I read non-fiction differently than fiction, as I think most of us do. Semi-autobiographical books put me in a schizophrenic state of mind. My heart has one foot in the car, the other hanging out the window. It impacts my emotional investment a great deal, because it's the only type of book that isn't sincere. I still liked this book a bunch, but with furrowed brow.

It's sort of told in vignettes, the way Meg might remember pieces of her childhood naturally. I would have liked the stories to be woven together more, for more fluid progression. But these vignettes are disturbing, so I was turning pages just to see what new monster I might find. Telling the stories from a child's perspective, in almost-present tense, makes the abuse feel all the more dire. And her naive yet plucky narrative makes her easy to like and care about.
I'm still hoping for an unscrambled, completely non-fiction version from Meg. But for now, I'm quite fond of Anna.

[Ms. B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Synopsis:
Anna's mother came home one day, scrubbed the apartment from top to bottom, brushed out her hair, and opened the door to a stranger. He was tall, with a smile that showed too many teeth, and the way he called Mama beautiful made Anna cry and hide. The stranger married Mama and moved in, bringing his family with him - two girls and a boy with gangly limbs, toast-colored hair, and no possessions of their own. So Anna had a new family and found that her life contained a new and forceful presence: Richard. Shaped by an exacting cinematic sensibility, Singing Songs explores how one family lives, center-less, caught in a flux of emotion and violence that touches and transforms each of its members. Nomadic and insular, Anna's family follows the shifting sands of temporary employment, fleeing from social workers, schools, and nearly all the conventions of society. Anna makes pets of barn owls and a fawn, and paints radiators with her hands during a summer work trip on the road. She pretends fiercely, imagines grandly, and when Richard comes upstairs at night for "kissing lessons," she winds herself and her sister tightly in a sheet, cocoon-like, for protection. And gradually, with all the force of innocence and a fierce loyalty to herself, Anna seizes pieces of the world as her own. Singing Songs is the masterful realization of a young girl's journey to adulthood in a chaotic, abusive, and fragmented world; an affirmation of a child's ability to use her judgment and imagination alone to light her way. It is the story of a strange and beautiful metamorphosis and a profound statement about the dark and secret places of family life.

My Opinion:
This book made me feel sick to my stomach. I kept reading thinking there would be a happily ever after. But, it proved time and time again to make you want to be sick. It makes me sad to think that she went through the things she wrote about. Written well, but it was sad and disturbing! I rated it two for being written well but the story itself was a one, who wants to read that kind of thing?

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a writer to capture the voice of a child and write a compelling page turning story is quite difficult. Meg Tilly writes in the voice of Anna, a young girl growing up in a dysfunctional, abusive family. The innocence of children is portrayed through the games created by Anna and her siblings in an effort to escape their harsh reality of poverty and disengaged parents. The haunting scenes of abuse told through a child's eyes make this book more than a tale of family, but a tale of the resilience of children as they attempt to live their lives in the absence of parental guidance. Meg Tilly eases the tension with humor through the interactions of the siblings. It turns into a coming of age at the end of the novel as Anna enters pre-teen age and starts experimenting with the pressures face by a teenager. Although it is told is a child's voice, I recommend this novel for mature audiences only.

The cycle of sexual abuse is clearly defined as the story unfolds and the girls are sexually abused by not only their step-brothers and step-father but also by their step-grandfather.

The author indicated in the preface of the book that this is her childhood story.

I would love to read a sequel and see how Anna grows up and escapes, especially if this indeed a true story.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is hard to say I "really liked" this book since it deals with such sad and disturbing events in this family. I did get engrossed in the story and felt like the writing was mostly good. The voice of the narrator, a young girl, seemed authentic to me as she found her own way to deal with the abuse and neglect she lived with. I had a problem with figuring out her age at various points in the book; she would describe events that sounded like a teenager but then revert to a very childlike description of something else. Some things were pretty unbelievable to me, like the fact that her mother, a well educated woman and a teacher, would expect her very young children to prepare all their own meals, give them a bath only once a month, and not do anything to keep the children safe after she found out about the abuse. Also the fact that no teachers or neighbors or other acquaintances noticed anything odd going on, or if they did, they didn't do anything about it either. Apparently the book is semi-autobiographical, which makes it even sadder.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw Tilly interviewed on The View regarding her second book, "Gemma" (which I have just started). These are not pretty stories, but so well executed that they keep you reading. "Singing Songs" is the story of Anna, a young girl who lives with her mother and abusive stepfather in a serious of squalid locations. She struggles unsuccessfully to protect her siblings from her stepfather's brutality and lechery, fiercely tries to protect herself from a number of sexual assaults and tries, unsuccessfully, to get some help from her mother. She finds solace in the natural world: in a pet fawn who briefly lives in the bathroom and in baby owls who ride her shoulders. She revels in having her own room (a pantry closet) and proudly learns to shoplift. The interesting thing about this book is seeing this terrible world through a child's eyes and how she accepts as normal things like 5 year olds cooking dinner each night, brothers forced to sleep outside in a tool shed, etc.. Tilly says that both books are based on her own childhood.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. It covered a lot of difficult topics but there was a lot of humor and even fun to balance it out, and it was well written. Very accessible. I think that the narrator being a child had an interesting, and sometimes frustrating, effect on the story. Some of the more horrific events were described in a way that made it clear that Anna did not fully understand them, but the reader was meant to. Knowing that you understood something that Anna, with a child's innocence, did not was heartbreaking and really added to the tone of the book. However, there were times when the lack of an understanding narrator was frustrating. Several parts of the story were confusing as to what really happened because of seeing everything through the eyes of a child who wasn't truly understanding adult matters. It would have been nice for more explanation to enter the story at certain moments.

[Corynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually don't read books about abuse situations, but I decided to jump in and read one. This book was probably the hardest book on my emotions I have ever read. I think I chose one of the best on writing style though; Ms. Tilly's writing is very unique, sucking you in after you read the first page. This book is about Anna, a young girl growing up during the 60's and 70's in Canada. When I read that Meg Tilly later revealed that this book was based on life experiences she had as a child, my heart ached for her. The events and experiences that Anna's character has are at some points downright horrible. This book is probably one of the best written stories out there. I suggest you read, or listen to the audiobook which is narrated by Tilly herself. This book can change your perspective on life.