Things the Grandchildren Should Know by Mark Oliver Everett
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Book Reviews of Things the Grandchildren Should Know
Book Review: Madness, music, and crazy girls
Summary: 4 Stars
A musician like Mark Oliver Everett -- aka "E" of the Eels -- could only be expected to write a rock biography like no other. And "Things the Grandchildren Should Know" lives up to that challenge by being part musical journey, part contemplation of crazy love, and partly a bittersweet life story full of losses.
Everett's family was the typical nuclear family of the times, but with an undercurrent of tragedy -- his withdrawn father died early, his mother didn't truly involve herself in raising her kids, and his sister got a head start on her downward spiral.
Everett himself got into trouble, acquired a rotten reputation and dated some incredibly weird girls ("my sister Liz came back from an AA meeting one day and told me that my first girlfriend was now a suicidal, alcoholic lesbian"), even as making music in his closet became the private passion of his life. When he could think of no other way of getting somewhere else, he chose to turn his music into a career.
Unsurprisingly, he struggled during the days of hair-metal. But as more raw, real music became big, Everett's unique brand of rock began to force its way into alt-stardom. But this couldn't bring him love -- and it couldn't save his sister from her copious inner demons, or his mother from lung cancer.
Reading "Things the Grandchildren Should Know" is not much like reading a straight biography.It's more like having a long, rambling, multifaceted conversation with Everett in a coffee shop, where he attempts to tell you his life story, but sometimes he keeps getting sidetracked by his tales of crazy girlfriends and meditations on life in general.
And he comes across well here -- a guy who has known plenty of tragedy, but still has his wry sense of humour intact. There's little bitterness towards his "crazy girls" or his immature mother, and he's even willing to talk about his now-embarrassing adolescence (complete with humiliating incidents like the "bloody sweatshirt" incident).
But while the first half of the book is a bit fragmented, the second half snaps together into a quiet, meditative cruise through Everett's life. An artist's struggles to keep his work from being put into car commercials is smoothly wound together with his personal struggles, including the tragic loss of his sister and mother -- and how he immortalized them in his work.
Fortunately Everett never becomes maudlin or depressing. He has plenty of witty stories that speckle the text, whether it's the controversy over his "obscene" songs or a story about his mother's really, really old boyfriend ("The Wright brothers? Oh yeah! I used to know Orville"). Not to mention his hilarious kooky ex-wife, who first greeted him with the words, "You are not beautiful!"
"Things the Grandchildren Should Know" seamlessly mingles Mark Oliver Everett's life story with his musings on life (and crazy women), his witty prose, and his artistic journey.
Book Review: Great read
Summary: 4 Stars
Great book. He's led a very interesting life. If you're anything more than a casual fan of the Eels, this is a must read. It felt like he was embarrassed to write an autobiography and draw attention to himself while also needing to tell his story. He managed that line pretty well overall, though I wish he'd have more confidence in himself and his writing at times.Book Review: Triumph over many tragedies.
Summary: 4 Stars
Mark E has experienced so many tragedies and experienced much tragedy in his life. A weird upbringing, a whacky soul. Thank heavens his creative side prevails. A light read in spite of some of the subject matter. Very enjoyable.Book Review: For Eels fans only, really
Summary: 2 Stars
Everett gets off the occasional wry one-liner here, but if you're not an Eels fan, there's not much to recommend this tepid memoir of the Dave Matthews of alt-rock (E's a guy who'd LOVE to be a genuine odd-o, a la Mr Andy Partridge or maybe Robyn Hitchcock, but when you read the lyrics, as they're interlarded into his narrative, you go "Whoa--there NOTHING poetic or truly whimsical here, just the banal strange, really").
The narrative fairly shrieks "I'm so werid! Aren't I WEIRD?!"
He's dealt with death and dearth and depression and mental girlfriends, E, and weathered the nor'westers (however you bloody spell it--can't be arsed to look it up right now) of the music business, but, jeez, that's the story of just about any guy off the street you can swing a dead Casio at in Silver Lake/Echo Park.
The fact that you CAN read this in one sitting's hardly a rec, as another reviewer noted; every pool has its shallow end.
It's not pretentious, however--it does have that going for it. As E's, as the jacket trumpets, an ordained minister, one's tempted to ring in the old chestnut (mixing up the metaphors here, yeah) that this is surely preaching to the proverbial converted.
There are so many names dropped here you need an imaginary broom to sweep them away--the usual third-tier LA rock suspects...Aimee Mann of the Warble, Jon Brion of Ostentation, Elton John of the Cross, St Elliot Smith, et alia...
A boring bore. Two stars because there are, as i mentioned, random nicely phrased sentences.
Wanna fascinating rock bio/memoir? Find out about a guy called Julian Cope!!!