Booksmith note: We are now hosting at 7pm and 9pm reading. The 7pm reading is sold out. We have a limited number of tickets to the 9pm showing now available.

Join us on Wednesday, April 22nd at 7:00 PM / 9:00 PM for an impossibly rad evening with artist and musician Melissa Auf der Maur for Even the Good Girls Will Cry. More details to come, but please save the date. Tickets are required for this event and can be purchased via the link above. Seats are limited. Tickets at the door will be available as space allows.

About the book

A remarkably open-hearted, clear-eyed memoir of the ’90s Alternative era by the bassist of Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins.

Even the Good Girls Will Cry begins with Melissa Auf der Maur’s bohemian upbringing in Montreal, where her early, deep connection to art and music gave her entry to the colorful and thriving local creative scene. Working as a cassette DJ and ticket girl, she would see (and sometimes meet) the luminaries who’d pass through town—Nirvana, Jane’s Addiction, Pavement, Sonic Youth. Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a long-shot fan letter to a PO Box, her band Tinker scored a life-changing opening slot for The Smashing Pumpkins and, sensing her natural talent on bass, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love, just one of the many uncanny threads that weaves destiny throughout this riveting memoir. 

Whisked from her local scene and thrust into the eye of a hurricane of grief on a global stage, Melissa joined Hole for the band’s 1994 Live Through This world tour just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and Hole’s prior bassist, Kristen Pfaff, with Courtney Love at the center of it all. It was a tour of passionate intensity, as a chaotic yet stunningly powerful band constantly threatened to spin out of control. Melissa brings the reader with raging intimacy into the action, offering a heroic portrait of the unforgettable Courtney Love as she howled into the darkness as if to keep grief at bay. That was only the beginning of Melissa’s journey through alternative rock.

Part rock memoir, part travel diary, part psychedelic scrapbook, Even the Good Girls Will Cry is a behind-the-scenes rock ’n’ roll memoir with a soulful intimacy and mystic undertone that sets it apart from memoirs by her peers. It is a vivid dispatch from the last analog decade, artistically capturing that bygone era in all its messy, angsty glory. 

About the author

Melissa Auf der Maur was born and raised in Montreal, Canada with a fine arts education. She is an acclaimed musician, photographer, curator and producer, best known as the former bassist of rock bands Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins. In 2010 she co-founded Basilica Hudson, a multidisciplinary art center in Hudson, NY, where she lives with her family and magic cats.

About the bookstore

The Booksmith is an independent bookstore located in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco since 1976.

Please note:

• Check-in for the 7pm event will begin at 6:30pm at the front of the shop. Check-in for 9pm will be at 8:45. Day of tickets may be available for both showings on the night of the event, but not guaranteed. Come by at 6:45 or 8:45 and ask to be put on the day-of waitlist.
• Due to change in capacity / demand, all books will be presigned.
• Books will be available for sale on the night of the event.
• ADA accessible. Bathrooms on site during event hours.
• Events typically end between 8:30 and 9pm.
• Questions? tickets@booksmith[dot]com