- i knew true love and i knew passion (and the difference between the two) -

...I've just finished Mark Oliver Everett's Things the Grandchildren Should Know, and it's gorgeous.

Everett's the lead man behind the Eels, an alternative rock band that caught at my ear somewhere between second and fourth year of university. What a book; what a life. Things is hard to put down; it deals with dark and largely uncensored subject matter (when the book jacket lets you know its autobiographer has survived his entire family, you know you're not in for sunshine and rainbows) but it never quite loses a hopeful quality; that somewhere amidst death, life weaves up through the words he strings together, braided at times with lyrics from the Eels' albums.

In turns funny and rousing; tear-jerking and too strange to be fiction; smart and searing - Everett's gift for storytelling caught me right away. He moves, by choice, around the fringes of the celebrity world, and his anecdotes about fellow musicians like Tom Waits, Aimee Mann, and Elliott Smith are wonderful; the Tom Waits moment had me grinning.

In the end, as it should be, though, his life frames Things with depth, tragedy, and a dose of hard-earned wisdom. If you know of/enjoy the Eels, enjoyed alternative music in the 90s, or are looking for a window into an interesting life (that beats on, perhaps against even his expectations), I'd definitely encourage picking it up.

But for now, start with a song.

. . .

♥music of the moment: railroad man