Heavier Than Heaven: The Biography of Kurt Cobain

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The writer provides certain facts in a mix with perfectly cut descriptions. These descriptions make it possible to recreate the complete picture of Cobain’s life. Finally, it is also important to state that due to Cross’ special style the book is easy to read and comprehend. He tells his story in a very natural way. Heavier Than Heaven tells the story of the man who created Nirvana, from his childhood until the tragedy surrounding his death. This book also accounts for the story of Nirvana. Although I'm not catholic, reading this book was a little like reading Jesus Christ story: even though I know the end, it's impossible to avoid the desire that it had been otherwise. One of the themes most prevalent throughout the Biography of Kurt Cobain was that you can achieve almost anything if you keep at it. You can achieve almost anything because Kurt’s record tops the charts, he becomes famous worldwide, and he never listened to anyone who said he couldn’t do it.

I don't understand what could have possessed Charles R. Cross and his editors to include at least two scenes that take place entirely in Cobain's head; the man wasn't around to describe them. The first one follows Cobain after he loses his virginity, walking in a field and sniffing himself, his every intimate gesture and feeling described. That's questionable in and of itself, but we could give Cross the benefit of the doubt; it's unlikely, but maybe there's a quote or diary entry somewhere. Kurt Cobain was born on February 20, 1967 to a middle-class family in the United States. His father, Don, worked as a mechanic at a gas station, and his mother, Wendy, took care of the children. Cobain showed an interest in music from an early age. When he returned from a trip to the park at the age of four, he immediately wrote a song about playing in the park. By the age of six, he could play music on the piano that he had heard on the radio. He was an animal lover who took in strays and loved having a bathtub full of turtles in the middle of his dwelling. His home always smelled like the bottom of a litter tray. I can't avoid feeling sad reading this tragic tale, but sometimes we have to stand face to face with others' struggles so we can learn to put things in perspective and learn. Here's what I learned: life is our most valuable gift. As I listen to the Nirvana albums today, I realize that I know practically every song. I guess you can’t be a teen in the early nineties and escape the impact Nirvana had on that generation.For the next two years, a homeless Cobain roamed the streets, sleeping in cardboard refrigerator boxes, hallways of old apartment buildings, waiting rooms at community hospitals, garages of friends, and in ten homes of ten different relatives. The shadow of being abandoned by his immediate family always lingered in his heart, and his loneliness grew with each passing day. I saw Nirvana in concert 4 months before Cobain took his life. After hundreds of live shows it still stands as one of my all time favorites. In fact it was the first concert I ever crowd-surfed at. I was able to get up close and personal with the band and, in doing so, saw that Kurt rarely looked up at the crowd. His eyes were glued to the floor most of the night. This book helped me to understand why. Given his recurrent heroin addiction, the debilitating stomach pain he'd fought for years, the constant fighting with Courtney, and his unhappiness with fame I can imagine that Kurt felt a pretty heavy burden on his shoulders during those years. Cobain's mother, Wendy, filed for divorce in 1976, but the couple's marital troubles actually began to increase in ferocity as early as the second half of 1974. At that time, Cobain’s father Don changed jobs to work as a clerk for a company, earning less than he did at the gas station. The couple often argued about having to borrow money to pay the bills, and Wendy eventually filed for divorce due to financial problems. Cross [the author] took the name "Heavier Than Heaven" from a tour Nirvana did with the band Tad in the UK. The lead singer, Tad Doyle, was very obese; the name which was thought up by the tour promoters, was meant in part to poke fun at the inaccurate idea that Tad alone weighed more than all of the members of Nirvana put together.

So, while I'm not sure what criteria I should exactly use for the purpose of rating a non fiction work about a person, there were elements of Heavier than Heaven that didn't sit too well with me, hence the meh rating.Heavier Than Heaven is a 2001 biography of musician Kurt Cobain, the frontman of the grunge band Nirvana. It was written by Charles R. Cross.

As the band's fame grew, so did the pressure on Cobain. In the face of so much attention on him, he became increasingly uneasy. His stomach problems and drug addiction grew more serious as he got more famous. Courtney's pregnancy temporarily lifted Cobain’s spirits. For the sake of the baby, he found a doctor to help him get clean and later went to the hospital. But Cobain struggled, repeatedly alternating between rehab, relapse, and then rehab again. More often, he had to take drugs to get rid of his painful stomachaches. Since this biography was writen based in interviews (Dave Grohl and Kurt's mother notably stayed out), there is a lot of subjectivy here. Sometimes, I think the author took too much liberties in his assumptions. Fans of Cobain are faced with a similar conundrum. It was this delicate balance between the two worlds that made the music great; music with an edge and a palatable emotional intensity that was at the same time accessable and catchy. It perfectly straddled the line between ugly and beautiful, melodious and dischordant, gentle and rough. Cobain's dark side also came to light, as he was able to calmly talk to friends about murder, rape, and suicide. At 14 years old, he told a friend, “I’m going to be a superstar musician, kill myself and go out in a flame of glory.” At the same time, he began smoking marijuana to escape his real life. It is important to point out that they did not have an overnight success. They recorded their first album Bleach in 1989. They participated in various festivals and ‘indie’ concerts. It was not until 1991 when the band became famous. Their album Nevermind (released in 1991) was their breakthrough. All the dreams the musicians had came true. Nonetheless, Kurt Cobain became even more depressed. Admittedly, he who always wanted people to leave him alone found himself in the center of people’s attention. His drug addiction worsened.

Cross also noted that he understood it was a hard task to reveal a story of a man who was drug addict. So, he knew how serious his task was. He coped with this task and created a story for those “with courage to tell the truth, to ask painful questions, and to break free of the shadows of the past” (Cross xi). Having such an honorable goal Cross had to learn the whole truth about Kurt Cobain. Even his marriage with Courtney Love and the birth of their daughter Frances could not save the great lonelier from his depression. He had several overdoses within a few years. He had to postpone concerts as he was not able to perform due to his health problems. This frustration led to two albums Incesticide (1992) and In Utero (1993). The albums were financially successful projects, but many people considered them to be quite failing. Cross drew on 400 interviews with close friends, family members, bandmates and others to write the book, he also conducted a painstaking review of Cobain's unpublished diaries, hundreds of music recordings, lyrics, and family photographs. High levels of fieldwork and four years of writing went into producing this biography. It starts out as any typical biography, detailing his birth, family life, and early childhood in a very efficient yet story-like way; a phrase that can be used to describe how this entire book is executed. A nice touch that I really love is that every chapter is named after a quote from Kurt or someone close to him which seemed to, at least in my case, reel in the reader and connect them straight to Kurt.