If there's a cliche available, Schultz will reach for it. It was clear to me throughout that Schultz isn't trained as a reporter or writer, and that his editor was AWOL. The prose is choppy and hackneyed it reads like a high school report of everything he could get anyone to say to him or could copy verbatim from a high school yearbook or lyrics sheet. Three main things bothered me:ฤก) The prose/editing/fact checking. I have to say, as interested as I was in reading to the end, I almost gave this book up a couple of times, just because it's so hard to read this book if you care for critical thought. I saw an essay by Schultz in Slate, and decided to try his book to learn more about the last few years. Her essay recommended de Wilde's book, so I started there, but her book leaves the last few years murky, because he had shut most of his friends out of his life so they couldn't speak to it. I read a good essay written by a college friend of his on the tenth anniversary of his death, though, and got curious about who he was as a person and what had really happened. I'm a big Elliott Smith fan, though I've always preferred to let his music speak, rather than to delve into his life. If you're looking for a book written like a school book report that presents a simplistic psychological evaluation of someone the author never met, read Torment Saint. If you're looking to learn about Elliott Smith as a person and as an artist, read Autumn de Wilde's book. It will be, for Smith's legions of fans and readers still discovering his songbook, an indispensable examination of his life and legacy. This book unravels the remaining mysteries of Smith's life and his shocking, too early end. ![]() Torment Saint draws on Schultz's careful, deeply knowledgeable readings and insights, as well as on more than 150 hours of interviews with close friends from Texas to Los Angeles, lovers, bandmates, music peers, managers, label owners, and recording engineers and producers. In Torment Saint, William Todd Schultz gives us the first proper biography of the rock star, a decade after his death, imbued with affection, authority, sensitivity, and long-awaited clarity. And yet, although his intimate lyrics carried the weight of truth, Smith remained unknowable. By this time fame had found him, and record-buyers who shared the listening experience felt he spoke directly to them from astute, damaged, lovelorn, fighting, until he could fight no more. Smith died violently in LA in 2003, under what some believe to be questionable circumstances, of stab wounds to the chest. There was trauma from an early age, years of drug abuse, and a chronic sense of disconnection that sometimes seemed self-engineered. ![]() Elliott Smith was one of the most gifted songwriters of the '90s, adored by fans for his subtly melancholic words and melodies.
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