MixedThe Houston ChronicleHopper loves Chicago...and wants to convey the everythingness of her domicile-playground, to somehow put into words the cinematic experience of living in a city while a city lives inside her, minute by minute, hour by hour. Considering her motivation, one could, and should, question her decision to opt for spareness across three quasi-chapters over hard-core detail and chronology, the very tools for building atmosphere ... Anyone who did not directly participate in the gritty upper Midwestern music scenes of 10, 15, 20 years ago might not be able to latch on to Hopper’s narrative of nonsequential moments, however charming or prescient they are, because she leaves out the last names of supporting characters and their exact relationship to her, not to mention analysis ... the world still lacks published books by women writing as historians of the countercultural movements they built. So it’s hard between pages not to pine for a more traditional take that would have helped balance the scales ... Though it possesses a voice that crackles with the intelligence and worldliness of a well-read rock star, Night Moves, drawn from Hopper’s personal journals, does not add to the above literature (which is, thankfully, growing nonetheless). And yet it does something we need books to do in 2018—it gives readers a neutral space to kick around thoughts of their own glory days by omitting dates and fame, root causes of anxiety.
