Song of No Provenance is a strange, flawed, compelling, off-the-beaten-path kind of novel nevertheless written with a huge amount of heart. Joan is an extremely indie rock star in her forties with a pee fetish and a very strange relationship to gender. After she inadvertently reveals her fetish in (and i say this as a compliment) one of the most cringe-inducing scenes I have ever read in contemporary literature, Joan runs off in a shame-induced haze, tosses her phone into a bush, and takes a job as a teacher to three (lol) talented, ironic high-school aged students at a no-technology summer camp. (A somewhat outlandish premise, but i'll accept it.)

At the camp, she's all eye-roll and i-don't-care at first, but slowly warms up to the kids, and is forced to reckon her relationship with shame, artmaking, romantic entanglement, mentorship, and her fetish, esp. when she meets a nonbinary artist who she is intrigued with. It's a romp of a book, fun, idiosyncratic, and wholly the author's own (it brings to mind the george saunders-ism about the "little dung hill" that he nevertheless claims). The ending doesn't quite land, but that's ok. I'm looking forward to whatever work comes next from Lydi Conklin's twisted, life-affirming mind.

I truly enjoyed Conklin's writing style. I was really put in a time and place while reading "Songs." However, the story felt weak and I had trouble connecting with any of the characters. Joan and Paige's relationship was hard to follow.