Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota FROM OUR EDITORS
For those who miss the era of big hair and screaming guitar solos, Chuck Klosterman is your new best friend. As a teenager, Klosterman loved heavy metal, listening to every metal band from Mötley Crüe to Twisted Sister, Metallica to Poison. In Fargo Rock City Klosterman takes a look back over his formative years to figure out exactly why metal rocked so hard. He combines an insightful analysis of heavy metal music and culture with hilarious anecdotes of growing up as a metalhead in the isolated rural environment of Wyndmere, North Dakota, where arguments tended to center on which brand of tractor was the most reliable. Sarcastic, opinionated, and eager to defend his need to rock, Klosterman is the perfect guide to the world of heavy metal.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The year is 1983, and Chuck Klosterman just wants to rock. The only problem is, he's in the fifth grade, his hair's too short, his pants are too denim, and the town's too small. The Huey Lewis and the News song blaring out of the radio isn't helping, either. That's when Chuck's brother arrives home with a cassette from hell -- Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil. And so the twisted journey begins...
In this hilarious, young-man-growing-up-with-a-soundtrack tradition, Fargo Rock City chronicles Klosterman's formative years and the history of rock through the lens of '80s heavy metal. He knows what it's like to slow-dance to a Poison tune; to sleep inno- cently under satanic symbols; to confess your lust for Lita Ford; to understand that Bon Jovi sounds best in a pickup; to shoot baskets as a member of the KISS Army; to get intellectual about Guns N' Roses; and, yes, to have a nasty relationship with your first ATM card.
With a voice like Ace Frehley's guitar, Chuck hacks and riffs his way through this savvy, deliriously funny memoir of growing up as a shameless metalhead in Wyndmere, North Dakota. Against all odds, he parties like a rock star. Your story may be exactly the same or completely different, but if you grew up anywhere close to the 1980s, then your life has been touched by hair metal. Chuck Klosterman is here to explain why this matters.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Klosterman's highly touted debut has as much to do with Fargo, N.D., as the Coen brothers' slice of Americabre, Fargo. That is, nothing at all, really. Misleadingly titled to cash in on Fargo's cinematic mystique, Klosterman's memoir about growing up a sexually repressed metalhead, with a humiliating (mom-dictated) Richie Cunningham haircut is actually set in Wyndmere, N.D. Klosterman starts up with a bang ("You know, I've never had long hair"), shifts gears often (from memoir to music criticism, somewhat jarringly at times), and rarely idles. Ultimately, though, Klosterman, ironic throughout the book, does not write with enough sincerity to prove his thesis "that all that poofy, sexist, shallow glam rock was important." Granted, it's a daunting task to write a hymn of praise to the genre that spawned David Lee Roth so the author wisely stretches his pop-culture references like taffy. In the final chapter Klosterman, now an arts critic for Ohio's Akron Beacon Journal, quotes a friend's definition of a "guilty pleasure" "something I pretend to like ironically, but in truth is something I really just like" to explain how he really feels about glam metal. His closing summation of what metal means to isolated kids in the heartland will strike a power chord for many readers. (May) Forecast: Klosterman has tapped a gold mine. Fans of 1980s M tley Cr e, Poison and Ratt are pushing 30 and 40 and seeking a nostalgia trip. Also, Gear magazine will run an excerpt of the book along with a conversation between Klosterman and Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Let it be known that Fargo Rock City does not detail a burgeoning music scene in North Dakota's largest city (population: 70,000). Nor is it a yarn about a heavy metal band gigging across the frozen tundra of the Red River Valley. Rather, it's one Middle American's memoir of growing up with and loving 1980s heavy metal (e.g., Ratt, Poison, and Guns 'n' Roses). In other words, this book is for the myriad metal-heads from Fargo to Phoenix who inked "M tley Cr e" on their notebooks during high school study halls. The music, film, and culture critic at Ohio's Akron Beacon Journal, Klosterman uses refreshingly candid language: reading his debut is like overhearing a drunken discussion between two music fans. He nicely blends metal music theory with compelling tales of self-realization. Perhaps more than a memoir, this is a seriocomedic defense of a culture that was only cool to those who participated in it. Recommended for all public libraries, especially those in the heartland. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/01.] Robert Morast, "Argus Leader Daily," Sioux Falls, SD Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
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