Arts 11 Entertainment
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`And My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You'
IC
athi Kamen Goldmark's delightful first
novel, And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to
You (Chronicle Books; $22.95), gives a
backstage glimpse into the world of country music.
But for Goldmark, an accomplished country and
pop singer-songwriter, extensive research wasn't
required. She knows firsthand the trials and tribula-
tions of the music business.
"It's a world I am very familiar with and it's safe
territory for me," says Goldmark, who has
played in numerous bands.
Set mostly in Northern.California, And
My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You is the
story of young, talented backup singer Sarah
Jean Pixlie.
While touring with country music star Cindi-
Lu Bender, Sarah Jean is fired. A song she's written
has hit the radio airwaves and caused a sensation,
and diva Cindi-Lu doesn't want the competition.
Sarah Jean winds up hanging out at the Dewdrop
Inn, a meeting place for an odd assortment of musi-
cians, and living with her eccentric family. The
novel's colorful characters include Sarah Jean's Jewish
mother, Alice Cohen Pixlie, also a musician; her
father, Johnny Pixlie, leader of the bar-band the
Dewdrop Drifters; and Aunt Perle, her mother's
bossy, nutrition-fanatic sister.
Shortly after returning home, Sarah Jean discovers
she's pregnant, the result of a one-night stand with a
guitarist in her old band. Meanwhile, with her song
nominated for country music's prestigious "Patsy"
award, Sarah Jean tries putting together her own
band.
Along the way to stardom she meets unsavory
characters and faces the challenges and the back-
stabbing inherent in the music industry. Through-
out, her precocious son remains an important part
of her life. And no matter what occurs, she keeps on
producing hits.
Goldmark weaves her original songs throughout
the story, including "Put Me on the Guest List to
Your Heart" and "Hell on Heels."
The book's characters, Goldmark says, are drawn
in part from her own family.
"My mother, Betty Kamen, is most like Aunt
Perle," she says. "My mother has written about 20
self-published books. In fact, I got Aunt Perle's
nutrition tips from my morn. That line, 'You aren't
going to eat bread and drive, are you?' is something
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my mom actually said to me!"
When Goldmark set out to write her novel, she
automatically thought of a country-music backdrop •
"The only [fictional] books about country music I
had seen were mysteries," she says. "So I thought it
would be nice to have band life be the texture of a
novel."
Goldmark's interest in country music can be
traced to her childhood, although, she says with a
chuckle, "I hardly lived in country-music land."
She was, in fact, born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and
raised on Long Island.
"But I got a radio station from West
Virginia on my transistor and became fasci-
nated with this kind of music," notes
Goldmark, who was raised in a Reform home.
"You don't have to be Christian to perform or love
country music."
At age 14, Goldmark began attending high
school-sponsored hootenanny shows, which led her
to perform concerts in the park.
"My firsthand, in the mid-1970s, was called El
Rancho Motel," says the author, who moved to Los
Angeles after earning a degree at Antioch College in
Ohio. "I was in a punk-rock band called
the Enchanters and eventually started
recording country songs."
Her jobs unrelated to music have
included teacher, costume shop manager
and family-planning educator.
Over the years, Goldmark has played
in a bevy of bands. She is perhaps best
known for founding the almost all-
author rock band the Rock Bottom
Remainders in the early 1990s. Made
up of a rotating roster of such literary
notables as Maya Angelou, Stephen
King, Amy Tan, Norman Mailer and
Dave Barry, the group performed on the
CD release Stranger Than Fiction!, rais-
ing funds for the PEN Writers Special
Fund.
The band still puts on occasional ben-
efit performances. Detroit Free Press
columnist and author Mitch Albom
joined the Remainders a couple of years
ago.
Explaining how they came together,
Goldmark says, "I had been working as
a media escort for publishing companies, taking
authors around for interviews and book signings.
"Once in a while someone would tell me how lucky
I was to play in a band. It suddenly occurred to me
that many authors really wanted to be in a band.
"So I sent a letter to a dozen authors and asked if
they would like to do this with me — and we could
raise money for a good cause. Everyone said, 'Yes!"'
While regularly performing with her country-rock
band Train Wreck, Goldmark currently is working
on a new novel. The co-author of Mid-Life
Confidential, by and about the Rock Bottom
Remainders, and The Great Rock & Roll Joke Book
hopes that after reading And My Shoes Keep Walking
Back to You, people will "go out and support their
local bands" and play music themselves.
"We tend to see music as something other people
do," she says, "but I like it when people join in."
— Alice Burdick Schweiger
Kathi Kamen Goldmark speaks 8 p.m. Monday,
Nov. 11, at the Jewish Community Center in West
Bloomfield. She also will perform some of her songs.
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Lid cITR, amen es(jotunath
Her novel's
behind-the-scenes
look at count)),
music comes
naturally to
Kathi Kamen
Goldmark.