Let Me Clear My Throat

by Elena Passarello

Overview

“A remarkably entertaining and thought-provoking look at the human voice and all of its myriad functions and sounds . . . Wonderful” (Library Journal, starred review).
 
From Farinelli, the eighteenth-century castrato who brought down opera houses with his high C, to the recording of Johnny B. Goode affixed to the Voyager spacecraft, Let Me Clear My Throat dissects the whys and hows of popular voices, making them hum with significance and emotion.
 
There are murders of punk rock crows, impressionists, and rebel yells; Howard Dean’s “BYAH!” and Marlon Brando’s “Stellaaaaa!” and a stock film yawp that has made cameos in movies from A Star is Born to Spaceballs. The voice is thought’s incarnating instrument and Elena Passarello’s essays are a riotous deconstruction of the ways the sounds we make both express and shape who we are—the annotated soundtrack of us giving voice to ourselves.
 
“Standout pieces include a biography of the most famous scream in Hollywood history; a breakdown of the relationship between song and birdsong; and an analysis of the sounds of disgust. Akin to: A dinner party at which David Sedaris, Mary Roach and Marlon Brando are trying to out-monologue one another.” —Philadelphia Weekly
 
“The beauty of Ellen Passarello’s voice is that it’s so confidently its own . . . I began randomly with her essay wondering what the space aliens will make of ‘Johnny B. Goode’ on the Voyager gold record and couldn’t stop after that.” —John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781936747504
Publisher:	Sarabande Books
Publication date:	10/09/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	421 KB

About the Author

Elena Passarello is an actor and writer originally from Charleston, South Carolina. She studied nonfiction at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Iowa, and her essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Gulf Coast, Slate, Iowa Review, The Normal School, Literary Bird Journal, Ninth Letter, and in the music writing anthology Pop Till the World Falls Apart. She has performed in several regional theaters in the East and Midwest, originating roles in the premieres of Christopher Durang's Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge and David Turkel's Wild Signs and Holler. In 2011 she became the first woman winner of the annual Stella Screaming Contest in New Orleans.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: SCREAMING MEMES
Down in the Holler
The Starlet
The Wilhelm Scream
The Motor Mouth
How to Spell the Rebel Yell
The Candidate
Communication Breakdown
The Zealot
Harpy
The Novice

PART TWO: TIPS ON POPULAR SINGING
Space Oddity
The Soprano
Judy! Judy! Judy!
The Contestant
Hey Big Spender
The Phoenix
And Your Bird Can Sing
The King
Teach Me Tonight
The Frontman

PART THREE: THE THROWN
The Interpreter
Please Hold
The Illustrator
Double Joy
The Illusionist
Playing Sick
The Shape-Shifter
A Monstrous Little Voice
The Amputee

Editorial Reviews

Book Riot, "10 of the Best Essay Collections"



"[A] fascinating collection about voices throughout popular culture, from an 18th century opera singer to Spaceballs to A Streetcar Named Desire."
—Liberty Hardy for Book Riot, "10 of the Best Essay Collections"

"This striking debut is graceful even in its portrayal of the most barbaric groans and yelping cries."
—Publishers Weekly

“In a brilliant combination of rigorous study and conversational tone, actor and essayist Passarello has created a remarkably entertaining and thought-provoking look at the human voice and all of its myriad functions and sounds.... A wonderful collection for any reader and every library. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal, Starred Review

“In this eclectic collection of essays, actress and writer Passarello explores the ways in which our voices define us, refine us, and connect us to one another.... Passarello, the first woman to win the annual Stella Screaming Contest in New Orleans, informs and delights in this witty, original read.”
—Booklist

“Standout pieces include a biography of the most famous scream in Hollywood history; a breakdown of the relationship between song and birdsong; and an analysis of the sounds of disgust. Akin to: A dinner party at which David Sedaris, Mary Roach and Marlon Brando are trying to out-monologue one another.”
—Philadelphia Weekly

“What she’s produced here is a masterfully orchestrated collection of essays, so finely tuned and executed that they ring with choirboy clarity.... Not only an authority on the human voice, but also one hell of an entertaining writer.”
—DIAGRAM

“The beauty of Elena Passarello's voice is that it's so confidently its own. She's not selling her subjects. She writes with the kind of calm assumption of interest you make in a good friend (if a good listener) over dinner. But what she's saying is always unexpected, and full of information. I began randomly with her essay wondering what the space aliens will make of ‘Johnny B. Goode’ on the Voyager gold record, and couldn't stop after that.”
—John Jeremiah Sullivan

“With her extraordinary powers of listening, Elena Passarello helps us hear the sorrow, the epiglottis, and the Allegheny River in the many wondrous things the voice can do besides talking.”
—Amy Leach

“Elena Passarello's writing sings—and screams, quavers, and falls meditatively hushed—and this collection captures that startling range with the charm of the tracks on a crackling, spinning LP.”
—Paul Collins

“When I first read Elena Passarello's essay, ‘How to Spell the Rebel Yell’, I was so excited I pumped my fist in the air and let out a celebratory, ‘Yessssss!’ Her much-anticipated collection, Let Me Clear My Throat has that effect on the reader. This book is a stunning and exhilarating intellectual romp, each piece singing with the muscled verbal and emotional intensity of a great Sinatra song; it's both a Whitman-esque yawp and an elegant dance through the personal, natural, and cultural history of the irrepressible human voice. I love this book. It will teach you things, shake up what you thought you knew, and change the way you listen to the world around you. It might even make you want to holler.”
—Steven Church

“[Passarello has] an unwavering eye for detail. She tells the truth but tells it slant. Her essays momentarily unbalance us or demand that we look at the world or some aspect of it in a new way.”
—Oregon State UniversityProfessor Jeff Miller

From the Publisher

A collection of essays by a regional theater actress and writer about the relationship of voice to identity. When Passarello won the 2011 Stella Screaming Contest in New Orleans, it marked the culmination of a lifetime interest in voice. As a child, she took pleasure in trying to out-shout her mother, whom she calls "one of the loudest people I have known in my life." Throughout her young adulthood, she used her voice "as an actor in plays that required lots of talking, some singing and the very occasional scream." Passarello explores how voices work and how a few famous voices became cultural icons. Marlon Brando found screen immortality through the pained screaming of his lover's name in A Streetcar Named Desire. The author writes that his "transmutable hurt is what moves the line of dialogue to raw sound." Brando's Hollywood colleague Judy Garland was the diminutive star with the big, electrifying voice that shook buildings and overwhelmed listeners with its emotional complexity. However, writes Passarello, voices and what they communicate can be the undoing of their owners. In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's "hostile mutation of a 'Yeah!' cheer" helped sabotage his election hopes. The author's book is a mostly fascinating study of the meaning behind individual voices and other sounds, such as rebel yells, manufactured sound-artist screams and even birdsongs. However, because Passarello does not link the essays together, the text comes across as haphazardly constructed. Fun and intelligent but disjointed reading.

Kirkus Reviews