In "Baby Plays Around," Helene Stapinski recounts her life in 1990s New York City and her attempt to balance a new marriage with a freelance writing career while playing in a rock band.
While "Baby Plays Around" is autobiographical, it is a work that desperately tries to distance itself from this reality by coming off as the type of book that a rich and famous Helene Stapinski, on her deathbed, would have recounted after years of silence. Stapinski, however, is not on her deathbed and is more than willing to share in equal measure her memoirs of life, female liberty and, of course, music.
To be sure, Stapinski is an experienced and accomplished writer. Her book is by no means painful to read
and can be interesting to follow. Unfortunately, it suffers from a fatal flaw. Stapinski has a powerful connection to music, and throughout "Baby Plays Around" she attempts to make this clear to the reader by interlacing her own memories with the surrounding culture of New York's post-Velvet Underground days.
She portrays a life and a city now gone, but here in the book it is in its dying gasps. She puts forth a sense of nostalgia that is a little lost on those who haven't experienced it first hand. That is her fatal flaw. To those who didn't experience her time, this book stinks of pretension with its endless name-dropping and often failed attempts to articulate feelings. For those who did experience what Stapinski speaks of, perhaps the book will have greater impact, but it just doesn't cultivate an interest for Stapinski's experience from outsiders.
Stapinski has other things to say that have nothing to do with music, and these things have far greater impact. Her relationships outside of her band seem far more meaningful and leave a lasting impression because she doesn't try to relate the music to them. It is unfortunate that this is the case, because this book would have been a lot better if she took the same approach to describing her relationships with her bandmates.
"Baby Plays Around" is a difficult book to deconstruct because Stapinski should really have written two separate books. Her relationships outside of her connections with music represent a sad addition that Stapinksi should have felt comfortable enough to put in its own book. For those who feel the music, "Baby Plays Around" will be a joy to read. For those who don't, it will be a struggle to get past the first half of the book that is dominated with explaining her musical connection.
