Review of the Grace Jones’ Memoir She Swore She’d Never Write

Initially Grace Jones’ memoir was not what I expected, as it begins with an exhaustive cultural history of her homeland Jamaica. But fortunately, Grace soon proceeds to chronicle a life that’s been lived as an unrestrained adventure, from her early days as a go-go dancer to becoming a model and best friends with her sister ’70s cover girls Jerry Hall and Jessica Lange to developing into an iconoclastic musical game-changer.

Her recollections are a little foggy (“It could have been ’72 or ’71. Like I say, we weren’t wearing watches, we weren’t keeping time, or recording ever moment like you do now.”). But her opinions have the clarity of Swarovski crystals, as she opines on topics ranging from gender (“…I want to fuck every man in the ass at least once. Every guy needs to be penetrated at least once.”) to etiquette for her debaucherous parties, which one attendee described as smelling of “semen and marijuana.” Grace writes: “At my parties, I would let people do what they wanted as long as they didn’t die. That was the number one rule…No overdoses, no drinking too much, no collapsing, no falling out the window, no drowning in the bathtub. No accidents. Don’t spoil the party.”