You have to feel for singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, whose memoir frames her as the least celebrated and – in her opinion – least desirable member of a revered musical family. Growing up in Montreal and New York, the younger of Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III’s two children, she was given multiple reasons to doubt herself. Her mother told her she was “the definition of mediocrity”; her brother, Rufus, claimed he was McGarrigle’s favourite child; and her father, absent for much of her childhood, wrote a song directed at her. Titled I’d Rather Be Lonely, it detailed the ways she displeased him: “I think that I need some space / Every day you’re in my face / How can I get rid of you? / I’d rather be lonely.” (Martha later countered with Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole.) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbdsR5cDJlk ]
With that kind of raw material at her disposal, it’s remarkable that this isn’t another celebrity-tribulation story. Wainwright, though, isn’t that kind of celebrity. You’d struggle to call her a celebrity at all – despite abundant critical acclaim and a contacts book that includes Pete Townshend, Sean Lennon and Van Morrison (he was “a schmuck”, of which more below), she’s a steadfastly cult figure, albeit one connected enough to be able to casually note, “During [a recording session], Donald Fagen of Steely Dan dropped in to hear how things were progressing.”
