Under a Rock: A Memoir

Blondie cofounder, songwriter, and guitarist Stein (Point of View) offers a breezy and star-studded romp through his eventful life. The heart of the memoir is spent in the era of New York when the CBGB music club became the center of the American punk rock movement. CBGB is where Stein performed and partied with genre-defining punk and New Wave acts, such as Television, Lou Reed, the New York Dolls, and Iggy Pop, as well as other icons like Andy Warhol, David Bowie, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The last quarter of the memoir shifts from a raucous tone to a touching description of Stein’s marriage, family, and triumph over substance-use disorder. The brisk, anecdotal structure of the book is well suited to audio. The bulk of the 10-hour run time is performed by seasoned narrator Dennis Boutsikaris, whose professional polish is sometimes at odds with the gritty narrative. Stein himself narrates the final moments, and his world-weary rasp cements the narrative as he describes his daughter’s drug overdose. The audio is rounded out with a foreword written and narrated by Blondie lead vocalist Debbie Harry and a short remembrance written and narrated by editor and writer Romy Ashby.