Former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur has announced her memoir, Even The Good Girls Will Cry.
It will be Auf Der Maur’s first book and is described as a “part coming-of-age autobiography, part travel diary, part psychedelic scrapbook” and will also feature rare photos from throughout her career.
The memoir will be released via Da Capo on March 17, 2026 and you can pre-order/pre-save your copy here.
Auf Der Maur is seen as a pivotal figure in ’90s US alternative rock, and her career began as she was studying at university in Montreal when she formed the alternative rock band Tinker. She was recruited by Hole in 1994 and played on several records, including the 1998 classic ‘Celebrity Skin’. After leaving in 1999, she briefly joined The Smashing Pumpkins as touring member, and launched her solo career in 2004 with ‘Auf Der Maur’.
Auf Der Maur has said: “This book is about the decade that defined me and my generation, 1991-2001, and my life in the rock bands which allowed me to have a front row seat to an incredibly visceral and unforgettable moment in the counterculture.”
“It’s a love letter to the power of music and one-of-a-kind voices that make the world a cooler place; it’s also an ode to the analog, and what magic has been lost. Sharing what our generation witnessed, and what the world once was, in my hope of building a more livable future together.”
An official description of the book reads: “Even the Good Girls Will Cry begins with Auf der Maur’s bohemian upbringing in Montreal, where her early, deep connection to art and music gave her entry to the colorful and thriving local creative scene. Working as a cassette DJ and ticket girl, she would see (and sometimes meet) the luminaries who’d pass through town – Nirvana, Jane’s Addiction, Pavement, Sonic Youth.”
“Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a long-shot fan letter to a PO Box, her band Tinker scored a life-changing opening slot for The Smashing Pumpkins and, sensing her natural talent on bass, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love, just one of the many uncanny threads that weaves destiny throughout this riveting memoir.”
“Whisked from her local scene and thrust into the eye of a hurricane of grief on a global stage, Melissa joined Hole for the band’s 1994 ‘Live Through This’ world tour just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and Hole’s prior bassist, Kristen Pfaff, with Courtney Love at the center of it all. It was a tour of passionate intensity, as a chaotic yet stunningly powerful band constantly threatened to spin out of control. Melissa brings the reader with raging intimacy into the action, offering a heroic portrait of the unforgettable Courtney Love as she howled into the darkness as if to keep grief at bay.”
This summer, Auf Der Maur reunited with Corgan at a show in Montreal for ‘The Everlasting Gaze’, with the bassist also taking the moment to address her hometown crowd in French.
She also got back in the studio with Courtney Love last year for the first time in over two decades, and the two joined forces in an appearance on 070 Shake’s cover of Tim Buckley’s ‘Song To The Siren’.
Love and Auf der Maur also appeared on stage together in October 2018 in Hudson, New York, playing Hole songs ‘Doll Parts’, ‘Miss World’ and ‘Softer Softest’.
Auf Der Maur also dated Dave Grohl between 1999 and 2001, and in 2023 she reflected on the relationship, saying: “We had this beautiful compatible couple of years where, I mean, we were madly in love.”
