BOOK PICKS.

Byline: The Register-Guard

"Tori Amos: Piece by Piece"

By Tori Amos and Ann Powers 

Broadway Books, 2005

Ages 14 and up

This is a biography that reads like a novel. Co-author and music journalist Ann Powers portrays Tori Amos as a role model for young women.

Amos claims she was born a feminist. She has turned to female archetypes from mythology, folklore and genealogy to make meaning and give shape to her life as a mother, wife, composer-songwriter and performing rock star. All of this is packed into a small, 350-page book. Powers interviewed members of Amos' inner circle, and their accounts of working and living with her add another dimension to her character.

In the first chapter, Amos describes her relationship with her maternal grandfather, Poppa. She spent childhood summers with her Poppa and Nanny, who lived on Cherokee ancestral land east of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. Poppa instilled in her Cherokee values of respect for the earth and one another, and nurtured her precocious musical talents. However, the person she was becoming under his guiding influence met with severe disapproval from her paternal grandmother. Amos felt the conflicting set of values between her mother and father as well.

Like his mother, Amos' father is a conservative, a Baptist preacher. Amos grew up with Bible study and Sunday morning sermons, but found it difficult over the years to reconcile the word of the Christian patriarchy. She found support and solace in her mother, who quietly shares her views.

Amos was a child prodigy who attended the Peabody Conservatory from the ages of 5 to 11. She left Peabody because her interest in music and composition turned from Bartok to Led Zeppelin. She knew this was a disappointment to her father, and continued to take piano lessons at a Roman Catholic school. By 14 she was performing on the lounge circuit in Washington, D.C., accompanied by her father.

What I enjoyed most in this book was Amos' description of her creative process as a composer. Literally, it is her life; she's a songwriter 24 hours a day. She explains how lyrics begin as ideas and develop as they merge with life experiences, observations and her own spirituality. She illustrates the evolution of many of her songs in a section of each chapter called the "Song Canvas."

This is a book that has many audiences. It's an adult bestseller on the New York Times list, but there's a lot in it that an adolescent can relate to and draw from.

- Nicki Maxwell, retired Eugene School District librarian and mother of 1995 Sheldon High School graduate Chelsea Laird, one of Amos' managers, who was interviewed for this book.