Heartstrings: Melissa Etheridge & Her Guitars
You don't have to be a fan to enjoy reading this
I looked at the next cassette tape in the stack from my parents’ collection that I was listening to and logging into Discogs. A woman. Short, spiky black hair. Bright red background. “Melissa Etheridge,” the cover read, with no other album title. It didn’t ring a bell, but I would probably love it and I was right. Thanks to the Internet, I realized I did at least know her major hits and now I was learning just how much of an impact her music made.
In the 2023, I got to see Melissa Etheridge on the tail end of her summer tour. It was an incredible show, and even though I only knew what I’d heard on the radio, I had a fantastic time. As I find more artists I like from generations before mine, I try to take the opportunities to see them live. After all, we don’t know how much longer they’ll be able to tour.
I was pleasantly surprised one day during a visit to my favorite indie bookstore to find the graphic novel Heartstrings: Melissa Etheridge & Her Guitars. The blurb promises a story of Melissa Etheridge’s life and career told through her guitars. As a guitar player, reader, and writer, that was all I needed to buy it, but after reading it, I have to say this marketing is inaccurate.
This graphic novel with its beautiful, hippie-esque artwork is focused less on Melissa’s guitars and more on her development as a person. That’s the best choice the creators could’ve made because the result is that you don’t have to know anything about Melissa Etheridge or guitars to connect with her story. She was publicly out as a lesbian in a time when it wasn’t financially or socially safe to be so. There are difficult moments depicted in this adaptation of her life–rejection from family and friends, record labels that wanted to make her into something she wasn’t, and the grind of finding people who cared about her music. At times, the psychedelic artwork is the best metaphor to convey Melissa’s inner world and realizations. Because the story is so centrally focused on her, the pacing and character development are excellent.
Would I have still had a great time with this book if it was more focused on Melissa’s guitar collection and each instrument’s specs? Of course, but the better approach is to assume the reader isn’t a gear-head. In fact, most of the time, the guitar depicted on a chapter’s cover page isn’t actually featured in the chapter itself. That said, those cover pages beautifully capture each guitar, and some of the pieces in the art gallery at the end of the book give the guitars that flowery, forest-like touch that defines the style throughout. It’s a wonderful aesthetic that makes the book even more engaging.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and I think whether or not you’re a Melissa Etheridge fan, you’ll be invested in following the story of a young woman finding her voice in a world that didn’t want to give it to her.