Chuck Klosterman chronicles a 6,557-mile road trip across America, visiting the locations where famous rock musicians died. Commissioned by Spin magazine, he drives a rented Ford Taurus to sites including the Iowa field where Buddy Holly’s plane crashed and the Chelsea Hotel where Sid Vicious allegedly killed Nancy Spungen. Interspersed with these travelogues are long meditations on the cultural value of celebrity death and the way mortality improves an artist's reputation. He links these historical tragedies to his own romantic failures through a series of phone calls with four different women.
Music fans and pop culture obsessives read this for its specific brand of neurotic, obsessive criticism. The book appeals to those who spend their time ranking albums or over-analyzing lyrics in relation to their personal lives. Readers finish the book with a framework for understanding why the public romanticizes the early demise of rock stars and how distance changes the perception of art. It functions as both a cynical travel memoir and a technical examination of how legacy is constructed through the lens of tragedy.
Balanced in tone; an easy read.
Best for readers like The Story Seeker. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2005
- Language
- EN
