Car Ma

Car Ma is artist and musician Alison Mosshart's first printed collection of paintings, photographs, short stories, and poetry. It is a book about cars, rock n' roll, and love. It's a book about America, performance, and life on the road. It's a book about fender bender portraiture, story tellin' tire tracks, and the never-ending search for the spirit under the hood.

Mosshart imagines the auto body shop like some other Coney Island and America's highways—the last great roller coasters. She shows us that the engine on fire is connected to the guitar feeding back since birth. The sensation of walking on stage and facing an audience is like the laugh before the scream in a car without brakes.

She ruminates that automobiles—with their doors and mirrors and windows, engines and wheels and radios—portray us. They mirror our need to be in or to exit, our inward reflections and outward visions, our lifetimes of tinkering with the mysterious heart. That which runs until it doesn't.

Throughout history, the car has been a symbol of freedom and hopeful adventure. It stands to reason it is also a symbol of our subsequent spinning out... over things we never thought could happen during a song that is so good with the volume up that loud.

If you've ever found yourself feeling holy, pulling out of the petrol station with a full tank, like the last beautiful free soul on this planet, this book is for you. In fact, it's probably about you.