Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain

Charles Cross has cracked the code in the definitive biography Heavier Than Heaven, reveals many secrets, thanks to 400-plus interviews, Kurt Cobain 's diaries, and suicide notes. How he created, how lies helped him die, how his family and love life entwined his art--plus, what the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" really means. underground. Cross uncovers plenty of news, mostly grim and gripping. As a teen, Cobain said he had "suicide genes," and his clan was peculiarly defiant: one of his suicidal relatives stabbed his own belly in front of his family, then ripped apart the wound in the hospital. Cobain was contradictory: a sweet, popular teen athlete and sinister berserker, a kid who rescued injured pigeons and laughingly killed a cat, a talented yet astoundingly morbid visual artist. He grew up to be a millionaire who slept in cars (and stole one), a fiercely loyal man who ruthlessly screwed his oldest, best friends. In fact, his essence was contradictions barely contained.