Reviews
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CHUCK KLOSTERMAN Killing Yourself to Live
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Although not all good journalists are necessarily good writers, the ability to inject some degree of personality amidst a well-informed litany of dates, places and facts usually helps balance the boat. Spin music critic Chuck Klosterman is a mine of knowledgeable trivia and the fact that he’s also a personable, natural writer makes this a fantastic read.
Ostensibly an expansion of an article he wrote on road-tripping around America to visit sites of famous rock’n’roll deaths, it’s a wild riff on mortality, the relative importance of music, his own job and tangled love life. Mercifully, he takes time to blow the recent misconception that being a music journalist is like living Almost Famous for real; in fact, it’s more ‘reviewing your mail’. Yet he can’t help but create myths of his own with an electric style that owes a lot to Hunter S Thompson (the more reserved novelist of Rum Diary vintage, that is) and even a little to Jack Kerouac, albeit on the road not by virtue of a thumbed lift or a skipped boxcar, but in a GPS-equipped Ford Taurus with an ‘undeniably essential’ travelling selection of 600 CDs in the boot.
Of course it’s unashamedly self-referential - and reverential - as are all books by those seeking to elaborate on how art ultimately informs and enriches their life. But Klosterman’s passion, like Nick Hornby’s, reminds us that the right music, listened to in the right way and at the right time, can briefly seem even more important than real life. (David Pollock)
CRIME DRAMA
VAL MCDERMID The Grave Tattoo lHarperCollinsi COO
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l."v.’hen a violent summer storm uncovers a strangely tattooed body on a Lake District hilisede a local legend about Fletcher Christian. leader of the Bounty mutineers. is resurrected. Wordsworth scholar Jane Gresham investigates whether the mutineer secretly returned from the South Seas and told his side of the story to Wordsworth. a childhood friend. whc translated it into an epic poet“. now lost. But Gresham isn't the orin interested party and soon a series of mysteuous deaths come to the Lakes.
This is not as goiy as some of Val lvchermid's preVIous work tin particular the Tony Hill seriesi and neither is It as gripping. However. (i"(3(ili goes to her for breaking new ground and refusing endlessly to recycle a successful formula. Instead she opts to build a literary mystery around an appealing legend. A thoroughly entertaining read to while away a cold winters night.
.Shirley \NhllCSKiOl
HISTORICAI SAGA EL DOCTOROW The March
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El Doctorow Virtually invented the modern historical novel in the mid 70s '.'/lill R'igtrrne. his rich. disturbing Vision of early ?()th century
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America. Now the feted and feared iconoclast has turned his sharp eye for historical detail to the American civil war. xeroing in on General William Sherman's celebrated March to the Sea in 188:1. During the advance. the Union Commander's army of (30.000 set strategic fires that rampaged out of control and destroyed great swathes of the Deep South en route. ypically. Doctorow focuses on the human impact of the historical event. creating a memorable cast of (iisp‘aced characters to trail along in Sherman's wake. These range from a beautiful slave girl to a principled army surgeon. a pair of feckless army ueserters and a war ravaged Abraham Lincoln. While occasionally you long for a particular protagonist to follow among the cast of thousands. the novel blends vivid historical (f(?iéifl Ellltl ifl€3 imagination with a compelling narrative drive. (Allan Radcliffm
SHORT SlDRIF—S SHALOM AUSLANDER Beware of God (Picador) O...
Shalom Auslander was raised as an Orthodox Jew. and this heretical. hilariOus and fantastically sharp set of short stories all deal with Judaism and the thorny relationship between the Almighty and his chosen people. The stories here are endlessly inventive and usually gimmicky. although Auslander somehow manages to avoid his gimmicks ever becoming irritating. In one story God turns out to be a giant disinterested chicken. while in another a chimp is blessed with total self- £1‘.".’£ir()ll(3853. only to be stricken by shame and self-loathing.
The two best tales are
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the most stylistically post-modern, yet paradoxically the most effective: 'Holocaust Tips for Kids' brilliantly exposes the teaching of Jevnsh history to children unable to fully comprehend. while 'Smite the Heathens. Charlie Brown' parodies Peanuts to brutally ridicule the rise of anti- Semitism in 1930s Germany. Yes. really. That Auslander pulls all this off is close to miraculous in a collection that shows immense promise.
IDOug Johnstonel
JOURNALISM COLLECTION
PIERS MORGAN The Classic Interviews (John BlakeI O
Piers Morgan:
It‘s almost unimaginable that a more ridiculous book will cross your path this. or indeed. any other year. The title alone is worthy of consideration by the Trade Dsecritpions people. ‘lnten/iews'? I suppose asking people their height. who their first ‘bonk' was with and what car they drive is an interview of sorts. but “Classic”? According to this. dear old Piers changed the face of popular journalism" With his 'landmark intenriews With 'Britain's rich and famous'. Such renowned members of Albion included here are Roseanne Barr and Don Johnson.
Still. with all his skill. he somehow managed to get this from Harry Enfield when asked about his favourite books: ‘I read a lot; anything that's around. really.‘ And yeti have to pay tribute to someone who can prise this insight on ambition from Emma Samms: ‘to keep working'. Can you believe they actually printed those? I liked him more when he was creating landmark war imagery.
(Brian Donaldson)
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