Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt – Kristin Hersh
I bought this as I’m a fan of Kristin Hersh’s music, but had never really read anything by her, so what better way to start that by reading her writing about another musician who I knew about but know nothing about, not even his music, which I didn’t listen to until I’d finished this book. I’m going to be buying up his entire back catalogue, that’s for sure.
The book itself is pretty damn good, once you get use to the style of it, Kristin was best friends with Vic and they would tour together, and she writes in kind of a conversational tone, sometimes you don’t know who is saying what but it does not matter. Vic certainly sounded like a troubled soul, who was a pain-in-the-ass but a total original. Vic has been placed in the top five of the ten best living (he is actually dead) songwriters, along with Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Paul McCartney, and Bruce Springsteen (I’m reading Bruce’s autobiography now), so Vic is certainly worth checking out.
2017 read number: 1