About the Author

Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of many books of nonfiction (including The Nineties, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, I Wear the Black Hat, and But What If We're Wrong?) and fiction (Downtown Owl, The Visible Man, and Raised in Captivity). He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Esquire, Spin, The Guardian, The Believer, Billboard, The A.V. Club, and ESPN. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for three years, and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons.

Reviews

"Kirkus Reviews" This is what Lester Bangs would have written had he been a farmboy raised on a diet of Skid Row and KISS. Unfailingly smart and demonically opinionated...

Marc Weingarten author of "Station to Station: The History of Rock and Roll on Television" Klosterman's hilarious heavy metal odyssey will flick the Bic of every headbanger who's ever found salvation in a great Motley Crue riff. His sly, swaggering prose struts across the page like Axl Rose in his prime.

Ronin Ro author of "Have Gun Will Travel: The Spectacular Rise and Violent Fall of Death Row Records" With a style as hilarious as it is thought-provoking, Chuck Klosterman delivers an authoritative, impressive debut.

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.

"Kirkus Reviews" This is what Lester Bangs would have written had he been a farmboy raised on a diet of Skid Row and KISS. Unfailingly smart and demonically opinionated...
Marc Weingarten author of "Station to Station: The History of Rock and Roll on Television" Klosterman's hilarious heavy metal odyssey will flick the Bic of every headbanger who's ever found salvation in a great Motley Crue riff. His sly, swaggering prose struts across the page like Axl Rose in his prime.
Ronin Ro author of "Have Gun Will Travel: The Spectacular Rise and Violent Fall of Death Row Records" With a style as hilarious as it is thought-provoking, Chuck Klosterman delivers an authoritative, impressive debut.