Product Description
For 6,557 miles, Chuck Klosterman thought about dying. He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock 'n' roll all the way. Within the span of twenty-one days, Chuck had three relationships end -- one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile through a bean field. A man in Dickinson, North Dakota, explained to him why we have fewer windmills than we used to. He listened to the KISS solo albums and the Rod Stewart box set. At one point, poisonous snakes became involved. The road is hard. From the Chelsea Hotel to the swampland where Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane went down to the site where Kurt Cobain blew his head off, Chuck explored every brand of rock star demise. He wanted to know why the greatest career move any musician can make is to stop breathing...and what this means for the rest of us.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 92 reviews)

"Death Rides a Pale Horse but I will Drive a Silver Ford Taurus."

3 ½ stars

Let's be clear. I am a huge Klosterman guy. I've read Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs several times and quote it liberally. But this book had too much Chuck and not enough dead musicians. It was an inspired premise. Put Chuck in a rented silver Taurus with 300 CD's and send him to the all of the famous music death sites across America. I was anxious for our most entertaining cultural analyst's reflections on fame, narcissism, drugs, music and death. The thing is, that's only about 40% of the book. He also uses the road trip as an opportunity to connect /seek closure with women from various phases of his life...and then had the poor taste to fill 60% of a book on dead musicians with the sad exploits of his dysfunctional love life. Now, it is Klosterman so the book has some great insights on relationships. Here is one of my favorites:

"Don't ever cheat on someone...I'm not saying that cheating is morally wrong (note: I disagree - but that is not the point)...you will never enjoy it...you are never living in the sexual present. The only thing that infidelity does is remind you of who you're not having sex with."

But in the end, the two plots did not cohere enough to form a unified work. It is still Chuck, and, therefore, worth your time, but it does not fulfill the expectations set by SDaCP.

Note on the audio book: It is indefensible that Klosterman does not read this himself. It is not that the reader is bad, it is just that his defining quality is that he is obviously not Chuck. CK is 35% more fun to listen to than to read, but he does not give us the opportunity with this work.

December 01, 2008

And now, more about me...

So very po-mo. Ostensibly about a writer at Spin visiting places where rock stars died. However, that was just a sub-plot as the book was about Chuck Klosterman. It was somewhat interesting but seemed like more of a blog than a book.
November 24, 2008

The Flying V Neck of Books...Lives On

Chucky K, as I like to call him, does what any good writer should do, keeps the reader engaged and turning the pages from beginning to end. Is Chuck a Nick Hornby, David Eggers, Elizabeth Wurtzel? Well, of those three I've read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and watched the movie High Fidelity based on the book High Fidelity: A Novel of course. And my wife read Prozac Nation (Movie Tie-In) and then we promptly watched Prozac Nation together in which Christina Ricci does a great acting turn as Wurtzel. So Chucky K is himself which is good enough to stand alone. Is his book "Killing Yourself to Live," massively important, a pop cultural tome, or even one of the 10 greatest books of our time. Nope, no, nada. It's not all that. But if you, like me, graduated from High School in the mid to late 80's, even the early 90's, and are a semi-music freak and are drawn to all things pop culture, you will no doubt enjoy reading this book like I did.

There's no accounting for taste which makes Amazon reviewing and music critic opinions so fun. So Chucky K commits an unforgivable sin by idolizing the vocal qualities of Rod Stewart and the man's meterosexual man he is and was. His second unforgivable sin is raising the music and life and times of KISS up on a pedastal. That's what makes this book so enjoyable. The reader finds him or herself comparing musical opinions and what that music means to the opinions Chuck spews forth. KISS's solo albums and their merit? What rock band these days has the audacity or bombasticy to put out a solo record as a group based on each band member's musical vision? And is it really right to say Peter Criss and Ace Frehley had any type of worthy musical ambition whatsoever? Granted my Grandmother did buy me my only KISS album (the 33 and 1/3rd variety) in Ranger, Texas of all places and we wore out listening to one of their few worthy musical contributions...Christine Sixteen, but does this give Klosterman the right to disscect girlfriends based on KISS characters? It may or may not, but you'll be highly entertained listening to him do just that.

I may never compare ex girlfriends to the members of Van Halen but now that Chucky K has done something similar, why not? If we think about it, can't we not relate our relationships to the musical groups we have listened to? Did you have a REM-like ex? Have you been in a self-destructive Nirvana relationship? Or was there that Beatles girl or gal that took over the world and will forever be rated higher among relationships than they truly deserve if you would allow yourself a healthy dose of what's truly important and relevant? This is kind of what it's like to read Klosterman's "Killing Yourself to Live," except when Chucky K is writing its funnier, the wit is sharpened, and the observations are a little more pointed (not terribly pointed though mind you).

So it seems like the big criticism of this book is that Chuck visits dead rocker geographical sites coast to coast and all sorts of points in between and only leaves the reader with self-indulgent navel gazing that tends to be more about his love life than about poignant observations on rock or our culture. Well, pshaw to them I say. Though some of us have found a way to lose the self and become other-centered, it's hard to get away from the world revolving around the self, especially when you have so much tied up into the way you feel about the world around you, how you touch it and how it touches you. Maybe its generational, maybe Klosterman makes too much about pop cultural relevance, maybe Chuck becomes too inwardly focused on matters that might not matter? I don't think so my friend.

Though Klosterman's book centers around his life and how he drives through it, the observations he brings to bear and places he visits...the site of Replacement's guitarist drinking himself to death in Milwaukee, Kurt Cobain's home town, Great White's incendiary night club proves that music touches lives. And the seriousness of death and the irreverence of pop culture mortality leading to immortality can be laughable when looked at just so, that's worth the price of admission.

One things for certain, once you read this book, you'll be listening to Radiohead's RadioHead: Kid A differently, as a soundtrack to what went down on 9/11. If you like music and need a good entertaining light read, don't miss Chucky K's book. I wouldn't rock you wrong my friend. ...mmw
October 30, 2008

I can't state enough how much I put into this book

Killing Yourself to Live is a stand out in Klosterman's career. It is not his Spin writings, it is not Fargo Rock City, it is not Sex Drugs and cocoa Puffs, it is a stand out. You don't always have to agree with Klosterman's ideas on music, movies, pop culture ideas. Instead, take the book for what it is, a story about relationships. After reading this book, I took a long hard look at the women in my life and really thought long and hard about the lessons that I could learn from this book.

Klosterman says that the book is 85% of a true story and I believe that considering that the stories are so heartfelt, warm, and sometimes heart breaking. I've given it out to several female friends who have come back to me and said things related to the book and said how similar they are to our relationships. The book is universal. Seriously, go read it. It is amazing.
October 16, 2008

Not What You Expect

Whoever coined the phrase "you can't judge a book by its cover" saw this one coming. This book is a decent read if you're into first person narratives about contemporary pop culture.

I stumbled upon this book when some dude who had been reading it in a coffee shop suddenly stood up and angrily slam dunked it into a trash can. Intrigued by any piece of writing that could provoke such a visceral reaction I retrieved it and began to read.

It did not take long to discover the why some readers despise this book. As rock journalism goes it is basically an off topic response. When Klosterman does meander towards the genre his lack of objectivity is stunning. He openly despises almost all rock and roll born of the 60s (for example he says matter-of-factly that Eric Clapton sucks and his immense disdain for Jim Morrison pops up again and again) but he idolizes Kiss to the point that he sees the band as perfect ongoing metaphor for every meaningful relationship he has ever had with a woman. In a book that purports to be about death and rock & roll he spends dozens of pages on the mighty Kurt Cobain in his "Seattle" section without ever mentioning Jimi Hendrix.

Bottom Line: If you are interested in the relationship between mortality and rock & roll this book is very likely to let you down in the extreme. At best Klosterman pokes at the subject a bit here and there while lambasting you with his own personal biases. However, the book is actually a pretty fun read as long as you pretend its a Douglas Coupland novel. It is well written and is quite entertaining. If this was a novel about a guy from the sticks who somehow manages to become a sophomoric NYC rock critic it would be brilliant.
September 15, 2008

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Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota
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