Rat Girl is a memoir published in 2010 by Penguin Books

Penguin Books

Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...

 and written by Kristin Hersh

Kristin Hersh

Kristin Hersh is an American singer/songwriter who performs solo acoustic concerts; she also continues to perform as lead singer and guitarist for alternative rock group Throwing Muses and the hardcore punk-influenced power trio 50 Foot Wave...

, a guitarist, songwriter, and singer who has performed as a solo artist, and as guitarist/lead singer of the alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band Throwing Muses

Throwing Muses

Throwing Muses is an alternative rock band formed in 1981 in Newport, Rhode Island, that toured and recorded extensively until 1997, when its members began concentrating more on other projects. The group was originally fronted by two lead singers, Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly, who both wrote the...

. In the U.K., it was released with the alternate title Paradoxical Undressing.

The book chronicles a year (1985–1986) in her life during which time Throwing Muses gained fame, signed a recording contract with 4AD

4AD

4AD is a British independent record label that was started in 1979 by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent, funded by Beggars Banquet Records, and is still active today...

, and recorded their eponymous debut album, Throwing Muses

Throwing Muses (1986 album)

Throwing Muses is the 1986 debut album of the band Throwing Muses, released on 4AD. This was the first album by an American band to be released on 4AD, which had concentrated primarily on British-based acts up to this point...

. Other notable subjects discussed at length in the work are Hersh's friendship with actress Betty Hutton

Betty Hutton

Betty Hutton was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.-Early life:Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg and his wife, the former Mabel Lum . While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for...

, her much-publicized battle with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...

 and hospitalization, her pregnancy with her first child, and the experience of the band in the local music scenes in Providence, Rhode Island

Providence, Rhode Island

Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...

 and Boston, Massachusetts at the time.

The book provides further insight into Hersh's songwriting process, the internal dynamics within Throwing Muses in its first incarnation, and Hersh's childhood, including interaction with poet Allen Ginsburg.