"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)

Melissa Auf der Maur (Jessica Chappe)

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 second 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.”