Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"Klosterman's musings are pretty darn funny and well-articulated....[A] light and humorous read that sporadically touches on heavy issues. It's the literary equivalent of hanging out in a bar with good friends talking about dumb stuff, which is ultimately the only stuff that matters." San Antonio Express-News
Review
"[A] grim but snappy travelogue....Klosterman's keen eye for American pop-cultural themes and undercurrents facilitates thoughtful observation, and his prose brings those themes and undercurrents together in strange, fresh ways. A treat for the adventurous." Booklist
Review
"Writing in a stream-of-consciousness style, Klosterman talks more about himself than these famous ghosts....In the process, he delivers a sometimes hilarious but ultimately superficial account of the meaning and challenges of everyday life." Library Journal
Review
"I can't think of a more sheerly likable writer than Chuck Klosterman and his old-fashioned, all-American voice: big-hearted and direct, bright and unironic, optimistic and amiable, self-deprecating and reassuring with a captivating lack of fuss or pretension. He's also genuinely funny and I pretty much agree with everything he says." Bret Easton Ellis
Review
"Thank God Chuck lives the life he does and writes the way he writes about it. It's not just autobiography; it's a vital form of truth, and he's the real thing." Douglas Coupland
Synopsis
Building on the national bestselling success of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, pop culture writer Klosterman unleashes his best book yet the story of his cross-country tour of sites where rock stars have died and his search for love, excitement, and the meaning of death.
About the Author
Chuck Klosterman is the New York Times bestselling author of Downtown Owl; Chuck Klosterman IV; Killing Yourself to Live; Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; and Fargo Rock City, winner of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. He is a Contributing Editor for Esquire, a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and has also written for Spin, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Believer, A.V. Club, and ESPN. Klosterman grew up on a farm near Wyndmere, North Dakota. After graduating from the University of North Dakota, he wrote for the Fargo Forum and the Akron Beacon Journal. Klosterman is published in eight territories and seven languages. Klosterman lives in New York City.