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Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Melissa Auf der Maur’s memoir captures the beauty and brutality of ’90s rock

"Even the Good Girls Will Cry" recounts the era's mythmaking and how the former Hole bassist managed to survive it

Published March 24, 2026 12:00PM (EDT)

If you’re a music fan, especially if you are young enough to remember the ’90’s, you know who Melissa Auf der Maur is, even if you don’t recognize her name. She’s the woman who stepped into the bass spot in Hole when Kristen Pfaff died literally moments after “Live Through This,” Hole’s first album, was about to be released, which also happened to be not long after Kurt Cobain decided to leave the planet. It was an intense and disorienting time if you were simply a fan of the music; multiply that by approximately a gigaton if you were anywhere adjacent. Auf der Maur takes everyone along on the ride with the publication of her expansive memoir “Even the Good Girls Will Cry.”

But this isn’t just 400 pages of stories about Courtney Love and Billy Corgan and Lollapalooza (although there is a lot of that, and plenty of people will be picking this up just to read these stories). Auf der Maur had a life and a presence before playing in Hole (and later, Smashing Pumpkins), or she wouldn’t have been even considered. She came of age in Montreal’s alternative scene, the child of unconventional parents, and fell in love with rock and roll.

It was that obsession with music that led to her connection with Corgan, apologizing to him on behalf of the entire city of Montreal after the Pumpkins’ first gig ended with an audience member throwing a beer bottle at his guitar. Auf der Maur doesn’t hide her love for Corgan and his music — it would be impossible both because it is genuine and beautifully organic — and because of his role as her “spiritual fu*king cowboy.” He was the one who told his ex-girlfriend Courtney that she should hire “Melissa from Montreal” as her bass player. It is one of those moments of universal synchronicity that changed the course of many lives, not just Auf der Maur’s.

The ’90’s are everywhere right now, the hot topic du jour because if you were in your teens or 20s in that era, you are now at the age where you are starting to feel the weight of age and years, and inclined to indulge in a little nostalgia. Courtney Love is posting on........

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