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"Before you know it as the years go by, you're just like other people you have seen, with all those peculiar human ailments. Just another vehicle for temper and vanity and rashness and all the rest. Who wants it? Who needs it? These things occupy the place where a man's soul should be." -- Henderson the Rain King

Friday, August 05, 2005

Killing Yourself to Live

Book #35 of my 2005 challenge was Chuck Klosterman's Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story.

Killing Yourself to Live chronicles Klosterman's journey across the U.S. to visit sites where several famous rock stars passed away and report on them for Spin magazine. In theory the book is about how these stars grew in popularity after their death, and about American's fascination with the deaths of rock/movie stars, but in reality the book ends up being more about Klosterman's trip and his troublesome love life.

Despite the fact that the book wasn't really what I was expecting, I still enjoyed it. I've always liked Klosterman's stream of conscious writing style and his obscure rock geek pop references both of which are out in full force again here (at one point he describes a former girlfriend as "the girl in Ben Folds Five's 'Kate' multiplied by the woman described in Sloan's "Underwhelmed" divided by the person Evan Dando sings about in...'My Drug Buddy'").

My main beef with this book and with Klosterman's debut book Fargo Rock City, is that after awhile the topic starts to grow thin and the narrative begins to feel forced. I'm hoping in his next book we'll see Klosterman return to the short essay structure he used so well in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, as I think that was much more conducive to his writing style.

For more detailed reviews of the book check out:

BookSlut
The Onion AV Club
San Francisco Chronicle
Paste Magazine
New York Times

posted by Jamie at 10:35 PM