Pros:
- The author weaves a compelling narrative about Kurt Cobain, following him from his start in Washington to his on-going impact decades after his suicide.
- I suppose you could list the author's obvious bias in favor of Kurt as a negative, but A) he is upfront about his biases, and B) Goldberg does not claim to give an authoritative, unbiased account.
- I appreciate the highlighting of Kurt's politics. I was not old enough to grasp them when Nirvana was still around, but now that I am more mature they speak to me. The same goes for Kurt's support of the LGBT community and "genderqueer-ness," (though I wouldn't define the term like Goldberg does).
Cons:
- As with other works in this vein (like "Twilight of the Gods,") it is sometimes hard to differentiate the apocryphal and the factual, especially since much of the narrative happened decades ago.
- This book has a BIG cast of characters. Most come in and out of Kurt's orbit, so it can be hard to keep track of who's who.
- I couldn't help but think, "why now?" regarding this book. You could argue that the 25th anniversary of Kurt's suicide is reason enough, or that the intervening decades have provided ample evidence of Kurt's lasting influence, but the passage of time has also made memories more fuzzy, information more difficult to locate, and for a gaggle of other books on the subject to be published.
- (Nit-Pick) The "stinger" music at the start and end of the book sound like a bad Nirvana rip-off
Conclusion:
Ultimately, I enjoyed this work. I'm not sure how much it would add for a super-fan (i.e. someone who had read other biographies like Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana or Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain), but as someone who isn't as well-versed in Kurt's life, this seems like a good place to start.
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