Nirvana: The Biography

True's history of the superstar 1990s band gets off to a rough start when he invokes the "live fast, die young" cliché and declares, "Kurt Cobain left one of the best-looking corpses around," perhaps not the most tasteful epitaph given the singer' s shotgun suicide. Subsequent chapters on Cobain' s early years are bogged down with interviews with just about anyone who ever met him, many with little apparent editing from the original transcripts. Fortunately, the pace picks up as Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl join the band, and the trio rocket to fame. True trades heavily on his role as one of the first music journalists to write about the Seattle scene, as well as his status as Cobain's "drunken English buddy" and an ambiguously close relationship with Courtney Love (he also takes credit for introducing the two to each other). His insider perspective, combined with a tighter control over the interview selection, brings thoughtful insight to Cobain's dramatic crash-and-burn. Yet though largely respectful, True is somewhat ambivalent, questioning the extent of Cobain's talent and openly wondering if Nirvana had any real influence on rock. His opinionated, idiosyncratic take on the band is sure to set tongues wagging and respark the debate over how things went so wrong for Cobain so fast. 32 pages of photos. (Apr.)