I’m one of those sentimental old fools who expects the writing between the covers to somehow relate to the cover blurbs. Not praise as such, as that’s all subjective anyway, but I expect the cover copy to be related to the actual content of the book. So when I read that Chuck Klosterman’s Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story was about a cross-American road trip seeking out the places where rock stars have died and the legendary status attributed to leaving a pretty corpse, I was excited. I was there. I was ready to delve in to the murky world of glamourized tragic deaths and rock hero icons. On assignment for Spin magazine, Klosterman sets out across America on a three week trip from the Chelsea hotel where Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy Spungen, to the greenhouse in Seattle where Kurt Cobain shot himself.
When I say that Killing Yourself to Live isn’t really about a cross-country road trip to visit death sites, I don’t mean that the conceit works as a microcosmic context for some larger concept or reflection on life and death. I mean, yes, Klosterman goes on said road trip, but it is so rarely discussed or meditated upon that it seems merely a convenient excuse for working out past romantic failures through a first person narrative. Any actual thoughtful conclusions about celebrity death culture or failed relationships comes much too late, and seems forced out to beat a pushing deadline, to be considered truly insightful.
Ignoring what my expectations of Killing Yourself to Live were, Chuck Klosterman’s voice is witty, pop culturally aware and occasionally even poignant, and yet any criticism I could very reasonably make of this book – the unfailing egotism of the author, the self-aware posturing, the over-reliance on pop culture as life metaphor – is pre-emptively built into the text itself. It’s as if Klosterman is placing an impossible distance between himself and the unaffected reader. “See,” he points “I’m totally aware of my own limitations, so there’s really no need for your to point them out to me.” This technique of shutting down potential criticism places, prevents truly engaging with Klosterman’s narrative and instead just settling in as a peanut-crunching spectator.
That all said, a lot of Klosterman’s misadventures on the road are fun to read, in a “how do you even get into that situation?!” kind of way. His voice is, if meandering and obsessive, compelling. I just felt continually frustrated by Killing Yourself to Live, in that I just didn’t care about his relationship history with these women, no matter how richly told. There were enough positive aspects in the writing here to encourage me to seek out Klosterman’s other books, but unfortunately Killing Yourself to Live is indulgent navel-gazing rather than cultural commentary.
