This is a wonderful title: Between a Heart and a Rock Place. That is a wonderful play on words but sadly that is the only thing great about this book. I truly hope that Pat Benatar herself came up with that jaunty little play on words. Mrs. Geraldo had the chance to hit us with her best shot but she fired away and missed the mark.
I was both thrilled and concerned when I found this Pat Benatar book. I was thrilled to finally have an opportunity read about Ms. Benatar yet I was concerned about the size of the book or rather the lack of size. This volume was just a little too slim, I thought. I began wondering how much “stuff” she left out.
My concerns were justified. It was great to read anything about Mrs. Spyder but this book wasn’t fulfilling. So you know how one day you might have skipped lunch and by dinner you are famished? Then at dinner, you are given 3 saltine crackers. It’s unfulfilling much like the book. I really wish I could have loved Between a Heart and a Rock Place. I just didn’t.
After I was finished pretty much all I could recall of her story was the sexism she faced as a female recording artist. She faced what so many female artists have met in a male-dominated industry.
Pat Benatar tried to be true to herself in the early years, but contracts can be nasty things. Seism was alive and well in the 1980s and record companies were much more concerned with her image than her music.
The record company wanted a sexy little minx that the old executives could drool over. They found that in Benatar. They decided she was pretty enough so they tried to mold her sexy image.
We know sex sells. It always has. Rock and roll has always been sold on sex. When it came to men of the same era and early as Benatar they were also subject to the same sexism.
There is a phrase “ cock rock” which describes it well. Basically, it’s an aggressive sort of male sexuality. Think Led Zepplin in the early 70s.
But somehow when women are sex objects they often object and men seldom object. Not that any kind of sexism is ok, it’s not.
I wanted to learn more about the early years of Pat Benatar as a singer. We got what I can only describe as a sample, a small taste of what should and could have been. As I said, this feels like a bunch of material was removed for maybe time constraints or maybe they just had to fit a specific number of pages. Or perhaps Benatar just wanted a particular story told.
There were no tales of drug and alcohol use and abuse. Was that because there was none, did not happen? At all? Maybe we don’t read about it there was a lack of space imposed by the editors. As you know, editors do control a lot of the final publication.
Or perhaps we don’t read about it because each word of this book was so carefully parsed so as to present a particular image of Pat Benatar. By Pat Benatar.
If it is true that Mrs. Geraldo was attempting to control her image then good for her. It’s great that she can now control her own image. That was a problem earlier in her career. But if this is true then as readers and fans we lose out.
In the end, Between a Heart and a Rock Place just left me flat. The only thing I truly recall in any detail from the book is all the sexism she had to face in her career. Sexism she tried to gight and overcome so that she could be true to herself. Isn’t that true of many women? They have to fight for dignity and respect in all aspects of their lives. Rock and roll is and was no different than society, we all know that.
If that is the legacy Mrs. Spyder wishes for herself, that she tried to fight sexism, great. She might have won for herself but sexism in music hasn’t changed. It’s still there and in some ways, it might have gotten worse.
It’s great to have a legacy that is about fighting something bad. That’s a great legacy for anyone to have. I’m not certain that should overshadow her accomplishments in rock and roll.
That’s what I think happened here. Pat Benatar had one objective with the book and I have another. My objective is to nail down the person behind the music and in this, I am sorry to say that Pat Benatar failed. However, Ms. Benatar should be proud of the battles she fought on the sexism front.
So, Pat Benatar Between a Heart and a Rock Place is, I’m sad to say, just a Perfectly Passable Passel of Papers. Nothing more.
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