Heavier Than Heaven

July 16, 2001
"And there had never quite been a rock star like Kurt Cobain," Cross eulogizes in this celebrity biography. Unfortunately, Cross, former editor of the Rocket, a Northwestern music and entertainment weekly, never proves his claim. Instead, Cobain's story, culled from more than 400 interviews with friends, family and colleagues and exclusive access to Cobain's unpublished diaries, sounds wholly ordinary, from boilerplate adolescent bitterness about his parents' divorce ("I hate Mom, I hate Dad. Dad hates Mom, Mom hates Dad. It simply makes you want to be so sad") and malt liquor, punk rock–adorned angst to the tawdry details of his drug addiction. "Even in this early stage of his career, Kurt had already begun the process of retelling his own story in a manner that formed a separate self," writes Cross as he carefully dispels some of Cobain's self-made myths, including claims of living under a bridge, "tales... about his constant abuse at the hands of Aberdeen's rednecks" and harboring an aversion to fame. The many unenlightening observations are often painted thick with sensationalism; other times, Cross trawls the bottom for sources whose credibility and relevance are dubious at best. (For instance, he interviews Cobain's drug-addicted ex-babysitter, Cali, and some of her girlfriends, yielding a depressing she-said-he-said of Kurt's final days.) Conspiracy theorists will speculate about the conditions under which Cross gained access to Cobain's private journals. Complete with gossip and meticulous references, the biography will catch the devotees, though, like junk food, it may leave them feeling unnourished. 16 pages b&w photos. (Aug. 15)Forecast:Released on the 10th anniversary of
Come As You Are and with radio giveaways, this book will sell well.

Starred review from July 1, 2001
"I'm going to be a superstar musician, kill myself, and go out in a flame of glory." So spoke 14-year-old Kurt Cobain, who could not possibly have anticipated how prophetic his statement would become. Cobain, as leader of the band Nirvana, almost single-handedly wrestled alternative rock into the mainstream via the group's massive 1991 album, Nevermind. Three years later, Cobain rebelled against the phenomenal fame he had ambitiously sought and, physically and psychologically decimated by heroin addiction and a mysterious stomach ailment, fatally shot himself at age 27. Former editor of Seattle's influential music magazine the Rocket, Cross followed the Nirvana juggernaut from the beginning, and though he nearly bludgeons the reader with tales of Cobain's debauched excesses, one is still drawn to the artist's forceful personality. Cross transcends Christopher Sandford's 1995 Cobain biography, Kurt Cobain (Carroll & Graf, 1996) by conducting over 400 interviews and gaining access not only to the singer's widow, Courtney Love, but also to the musician's private journals, which provide fascinating insights into Cobain's troubled mind. The sordid details of Cobain's addiction and suicide and Cross's occasionally over-the-top dramatics are sometimes more than the reader can stomach, but ultimately this is a carefully crafted and compelling tragedy that serves as a necessary foil to Michael Azerrad's authorized Nirvana biography, Come As You Are (Doubleday, 1993). Lloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., CA

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2001
Cobain, the singer-songwriter of the band Nirvana, was in the public eye relatively briefly before self-destructing, but his impact and influence were huge. Yet Cross feels that Cobain's artistry remains largely undervalued, perhaps eclipsed by the cult of personality that accrued to him as the progenitor of grunge. Cross got access to Cobain's diaries and took four years to research and write the book; by and large, the result is worth that effort. Maybe the lengthy process has helped the book be deeper and more detached, like a real biography, but still it has barely moderated Cross' fascination with Cobain for such eccentricities as developing a "process of retelling his own story in a manner that formed a separate self" and speaking of himself in the third person even when writing to a friend. Probably too reverent for Nirvana nonfans, this is still a standout among rock bios and deserves its place in pop-culture collections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)