Vocal Break: On Women, Music, and Power
Nov 2026 · Sold by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Ebook
384
Pages
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Eligible
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infoThis book will become available on November 10, 2026. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
From the acclaimed author of Flâneuse and Art Monsters, a fierce, insistent, ecstatic investigation of the female voice, its power and vulnerabilities, and the ways women sing and speak their way through the world.
For millennia, women’s raised voices have been called unruly, uncivilized, dangerous. Singing women were cast as sirens: mythical creatures who lured sailors to their death.
A vocal break is where the voice shifts from lower to higher registers—from one thing to another. What can be made in this space of transition? Lauren Elkin draws on her own experiences as a young soprano in the 1990s as well as showcasing a full-throated, full range of other singers, including Édith Piaf, Maria Callas, Cyndi Lauper, Kathleen Hanna, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Beyoncé, FKA twigs, and Billie Eilish. Looking closely at the way power and identity shape our voices, she immerses readers in an eclectic soundscape, from musicals and pop music to folk, punk, and opera.
As she seamlessly blends cultural history, criticism, memoir, and feminist manifesto, Elkin lays out how women have used their voices to defy convention, genre, capitalism, racism, sexism, and the forces that attempt to keep them quiet. What makes women’s singing so powerful—to the point at which others feel the need to control or manipulate it? Vocal Break is Elkin’s insistent, joyous call: Girls to the front, NOW!
For millennia, women’s raised voices have been called unruly, uncivilized, dangerous. Singing women were cast as sirens: mythical creatures who lured sailors to their death.
A vocal break is where the voice shifts from lower to higher registers—from one thing to another. What can be made in this space of transition? Lauren Elkin draws on her own experiences as a young soprano in the 1990s as well as showcasing a full-throated, full range of other singers, including Édith Piaf, Maria Callas, Cyndi Lauper, Kathleen Hanna, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Beyoncé, FKA twigs, and Billie Eilish. Looking closely at the way power and identity shape our voices, she immerses readers in an eclectic soundscape, from musicals and pop music to folk, punk, and opera.
As she seamlessly blends cultural history, criticism, memoir, and feminist manifesto, Elkin lays out how women have used their voices to defy convention, genre, capitalism, racism, sexism, and the forces that attempt to keep them quiet. What makes women’s singing so powerful—to the point at which others feel the need to control or manipulate it? Vocal Break is Elkin’s insistent, joyous call: Girls to the front, NOW!
From the acclaimed author of Flâneuse and Art Monsters, a fierce, insistent, ecstatic investigation of the female voice, its power and vulnerabilities, and the ways women sing and speak their way through the world.
For millennia, women’s raised voices have been called unruly, uncivilized, danger...
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About the author
Lauren Elkin is the author of Scaffolding, Art Monsters, and Flâneuse, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Le Monde, Frieze, and the Times Literary Supplement, among other publications. A native New Yorker, Elkin lived in Paris for twenty years and now resides in London.
Lauren Elkin is the author of Scaffolding, Art Monsters, and Flâneuse, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Le Monde, Frieze, and the Times Literary Supplement, a...
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