Janis Ian-autobiography

I like Janis Ian's music for the most part and have followed her career for a long time but find her autobiography miopic. Often portraying herself as a victim in relationships, I wonder what her partners would have said about her shortcomings-she shares no self awareness in this regard. I feel she was unfair to Kye Fleming particularly, with whom she wrote some of her best music. Also, beginning the book as a victim of crowds of hating people is a little dramatic-lots of people were oppressed for supporting civil rights in the 60's and died-she was lucky in comparison to many who risked everything to drive into the South or march in the streets and be beaten. Society's Child was just one song which is really not a big deal, except in her eyes and that is why I use the term myopic . There was probably a psychological reason why Janis Joplin wanted to buy clothes instead of play music and she dismisses these subtlties. Likewise, I feel her journey toward accepting her own lesbianism or bisexuality was more complicated than presented here-she has been very repressed to keep her career alive and cut her fashion to fit the times (to coin a phrase by Lillian Hellman). She was no follower of the women's music of the 70's (which had no popular market) when even the great Dusty Springfield was-and risked being invisible. She has been keen to chose how to sell herself to the public and I think that is too bad as it comes across as dishonest, but really I think she has difficulty seeing other people's perspective or that she is just part of a bigger picture-and I believe she is as honest as she can be. She rises above that sometimes in her music and that is why I like some of her music-maybe that is the one place where she can really approach honesty.