Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story (Paperback)

by Chuck Klosterman (Author) "I am not qualified to live here..." (more)
Key Phrases: rock criticism, slow ride, New York, Great White, North Dakota (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Klostermanfollows up on 2003's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by expanding on an article he wrote for Spin about driving cross-country to visit several of America's most famous rock and roll death sites, from the Rhode Island club where more than 90 Great White fans died in a fire, to the Iowa field where Buddy Holly's plane crashed. Along the way, Klosterman opines on rock music, never afraid to offend—as when he interprets a Radiohead album as a 9/11 prophecy or reminds readers that before Kurt Cobain's suicide, many preferred Pearl Jam to Nirvana. The quest to uncover these deaths' social significance is quickly overwhelmed by Klosterman's personal obsessions, especially his agonizing over sexual relationships. He applies semifictional techniques to these concerns, inventing an imaginary conversation in the car with three girlfriends that becomes the book's centerpiece. This literary cleverness recalls classic gonzo journalism, but also contains a self-conscious edge, inviting comparison to Dave Eggers. Klosterman also worries his neuroses will brand him as "the male Elizabeth Wurtzel," but he needn't fret. Despite their shared subject matter of drug use and cultural musing, Klosterman has clearly established that he has a potent voice all his own.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Armed with 600 CDs in the back seat, a task of gargantuan rock ’n’ roll proportions, memories of three dysfunctional relationships (an ex, a sort of ex, and a true love), and a wild imagination, Klosterman’s in good shape for his cross-country death trip. A few critics compared his pop-culture musings to Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. Yet Klosterman (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs *** Nov/Dec 2003) tries harder, indulges himself more, chats faster, uses more gimmicks, and doesn’t achieve Hornby’s heights. But Klosterman is nothing if not articulate about music, and his light, humorous touch often reveals meatier themes and revelatory insights about not only music but also life and death, particularly his own life. Reading Klosterman is like sitting in a bar with a good friend. It’s fun, but when it’s time to leave, it’s time to leave.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (June 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743264460
• ISBN-13: 978-0743264464
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,972 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lack of Focus Leads to Excessive Navel Gazing, September 15, 2005

By	A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story (Hardcover)

Chuck Klosterman's first two books were highly entertaining if sometimes exasperating melanges of pop culture and memoir. In this third book his writing is just a snappy and sharp, but there's a lack of focus that makes it several notches weaker than those. When his pop-culture addled wit and insight are aimed directly at something like '80s metal, or contemporary film, or breakfast cereals, the results can be amazing. However, he can also descend into weak or muddled rants, and when he becomes the main subject, it's just not that interesting. Unfortunately, the main subject of this third book is largely himself and his tortured love life.

The premise that Chuck's going to go an Epic road trip (on Spin magazine's dime) to tour famous American rock and roll death sites proves to be mere pretense for an extended trip into Chuck's head as he drives cross-country. Sure, he visits a lot of places where people died, like Skynyrd, VanZant, Buckley, Holly, Cobain, et al, but he rarely has anything interesting to say. Very occasionally he does, such as pointing out that Sid Vicious' inability to play the bass was what made him the perfect punk icon. The best part is probably near the beginning, when he visits the Rhode Island site of a club fire during a Great White show which killed almost a hundred people. He discovers a site of pilgrimage and reflection (and coke snorting), and embarks on an excellent diatribe against the prevalence of ironic distance in modern music fans and how the people at the Great White show were the most authentic music fans around.

However, despite nice bits like these, the focus is on Chuck's current and ex-girlfriends -- which gets annoying for a number of reasons. Probably the foremost of these is how in all his writing he self-deprecatingly paints himself as an awkward music geek, and yet here he is describing these multiple smart, sexy, rockin' women he has to chose between. Poor baby. Of course he describes the rise and fall of his various relationships in relatively humorous fashion, but it still comes across like so much self-indulgent navel gazing. There are some nice parts, like an imagined fourway conversation with the women in question, and a bit where he compares each to a member of KISS that is probably pretty funny if you know anything about KISS (I don't). He's a pining romantic at heart, and as one with a somewhat similar composition, I could identify with bits and pieces, but it all gets tiresome by the end.

Stylistically, the writing is what one expects. Sharp, crackling stuff, with loads of digressions, asides, tangents, obscure references, and laugh out loud parts. Music fans will have plenty of little tidbits to keep them going, such as an interpretation of Radiohead's "Kid A" as unintended soundtrack for 9/11 (rather forced in my mind), the relative popularity of Pearl Jam to Nirvana when Cobain died (misguided analysis in my mind), the "truth" of Rod Stewart's voice (somewhat better: "Stewart may be a blond clown with bad judgment, but everything he says is true"), and the universal popularity of Led Zeppelin (ridiculous: "they are the only group in the history of rock n' roll that every male rock fan seems to experience in exactly the same way") , and best of all, a moving explanation of why The Replacements make him cry.

Overall, if you like his writing, you might as well read this: it's quick and there are enough good tidbits to keep you going. However, lets hope that his future books will find more focus. The only other thing I'd add is that for someone who spends a page explaining the difference between "pot people" and "coke people" (in a very funny way) and why he's a pot person, he recounts enough coke anecdotes to make you wonder about his self-classification.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Bearable Lightness of Chuck, August 30, 2005

By	R. W. Rasband (Heber City, UT) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story (Hardcover)

"Killing Yourself to Live" is Chuck Klosterman's latest motormouth rant on popular culture and it's an entertaining, fun read. Chuck sets out in a rental car across America to visit the death sites of some famous rock stars, and to ponder why for so many of them their demise was a good career move. Chuck also tells the stories of three of his girlfriends (these may be in part or in whole fictional; at the beginning of the book Chuck warns us that "romance is 85% illusion and 15% real".)

Chuck is a clever fellow so he anticipates most of the criticism that will be leveled at this book ("Why are you writing what people will call a non-fiction "High Fidelity"?) Much of the fun comes from following Chuck's invariably self-questioning interior monologue. He captures very well how a lot of people talk to themselves, with self-doubt and self-deprecating comedy.

The appeal of this book for me is how Chuck approaches heavy subjects like Death and The Meaning Of Life with just the right lightness of touch. Comedy helps you bear the unbearble, and Klosterman shouldn't be dismissed because he tells good jokes along the way. His lightness conceals some pretty profound musings, like on page 218 where he explains how his love of KISS helps him make sense of his life: "Art and love are the same thing: it's the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you. It's understanding the unreasonable." Unlike a lot of critics, Klosterman comes from the heartland and doesn't look back with disgust; the folkways of the middle of the country are bred in his bones, so he has a lot of skepticism for the enthusiasms of the elites. On page 92 he shows how a lot of intellectuals have to talk themselves into liking something like the Allman Brothers that most people who are non-rock critics simply enjoy as "just real music." Common sense is paradoxically a rare thing and I detect it in Chuck.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too self-involved, August 1, 2005

By	MowDog (Washington, DC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story (Hardcover)

Having read Klosterman's other two books and loving them, I was excited to hear his take on the phenomenon of rock stars finding fame through premature death. Instead, I got a book that devotes roughly 20% of its pages to this topic and leaves the rest for Chuck to fill with self-pity and neurotic tales of heartbreak.

It's impossible not to compare this book with Hornby's High Fidelity in its discussion of music as a vehicle to examine past relationships. However, where Hornby succeeded in creating a lighthearted, funny novel filled with introspection that rings true and original, Klosterman's attempt comes across as a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to exorcise his demons at the expense of this reader's patience.