BOOKS & CULTURE | Chuck Klosterman is tired. He’s been out promoting his new book Killing Yourself to Live for six weeks and the poor man has had enough. 

Killing Yourself to Live, 2005

He’s tired of travelling and he’s tired of being asked the same questions over and over again.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he says, in a telephone interview last week, after I ask him if he’s okay. He sounds a bit off.

“I’ve just gone to the airport so many times at this point, I feel angry at the entire world. I loved this book when I wrote it. I thought it was the best thing I’d ever written. But I basically hate it now. I really wish I never had to talk about it again.”

Sad really, because the book is great.

Killing Yourself to Live is a memoir of sorts, with a little personal romantic angst thrown in, but it’s basically about Klosterman road tripping to the places where various rock stars kicked the bucket (The Chelsea Hotel, Seattle, unknown corn fields). “The object of the book isn’t to say – hey look, death changes the way people look at musicians – we all know that death changes people’s perception,” Klosterman says. “It’s about why that happens.”

Though a journalist himself (he’s is a senior writer for Spin magazine) and despite having done promotion before (his previous two books, Fargo, Rock City, and Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs were both successful), Klosterman’s finding this whole role reversal thing a bit trying.

“If you interview someone and you do a bad job, the only consequence is that you have to put together a story without any good quotes,” he says, “but if you’re being interviewed and you’re at all rude, or off the cuff, or short, the journalist locks in on that. As a result, you find yourself giving uninteresting quotes almost on purpose, because if you give quotes that are incendiary, they’ll be used against you.”

“I’m also always worried about being quoted too accurately. This guy interviewed me from some university in Iowa one time, and he translated the interview absolutely verbatim. He made me look like Ashley fucking Simpson. You need to try to illustrate the way the person came across, not every utterance … Please, don’t make me sound like an idiot.”

Even if I wanted to, making Klosterman sound stupid wouldn’t be easy.

He’s obviously smart, and extremely self aware, which comes across in his writing and in the way he talks.

“I use my own life as a literary device, and I think people seem interested in my life for the same reason they’re interested in their own,” he says. “Everybody has relationships that didn’t work out. Everybody has songs they loved when they were 18. Everyone’s met random people and had weird conversations with them. At the same time, I‘m always surprised that anybody likes my books besides me … surprised, shocked, and extremely flattered.”

So he’s modest too.

2018: I had only so much space to use for this piece, but I did a pretty long Q&A with Klosterman over the phone on August 25th, 2005. Here are all the bits that didn’t make it into the final piece. 

Chuck Klosterman

Jen Selk: Have you read Sarah Vowell’s book, Assassination Vacation? It’s got a similar premise to yours.

Chuck Klosterman: No, I ran into her at a party when we were both working on these books.

How did the women you wrote about react to being in the book?

One of them was sort of upset, although partially because she felt she should have had a bigger role. One of them was initially kind of sad, but has come to feel kind of happy to be part of something – she loves the book now. The third person didn’t even read it, and I wasn’t surprised … she’s just a very forward looking person.

Do you ever feel like you’re exploiting your personal relationships in order to further your career?

I worry about that, I guess. I don’t feel like I am, but if people feel like they were exploited, then it doesn’t really matter how I feel. It’s hard to do emo.

You’re becoming something of a celebrity, right?

No. I’m not in television. The only people who know who I am are people who know who I am. They’ve read my books or my journalism. If you sell a million copies, maybe the scales start to tip, but no. 

What’s a question you fear or dread being asked?

The only thing I fear is that I’ll be asked the same five or six questions I always seem to get. They always ask: How did I get the idea?; What did I learn?; What happened with the women? Bring interviewed is difficult. It’s terribly repetitive.

Sorry! Guilty. So on another subject, what bands or musicians do you think are overrated right now? And why? Give me a top three.

Interesting question, because someone can be overrated because they’re only okay, but they sell lots of records, or because they get too much media attention in relation to their talent. So my question is what do you mean?

There are artists I don’t listen to. 311, I don’t think their records are that good. They can sell a lot of records and sell out a lot of big places, but the fact of the matter is, they’re not directed to me. I’m not their target audience. 

Madonna. Is Madonna’s music as good as her popularity? Has she made records that would illustrate that she is in the top five or 10 most important artists of the 20^th or 21^st Century? 

Secret Machines. I wish people looked at their music more analytically. Critics like them because they’re this cool new band, but sonically … I don’t know.

The Hold Steady, maybe? I’ll go back to what do you mean?

What are the best and worst things about your job? (People are always telling me I have such a “cool” job so maybe you get that too.)

The Chelsea Hotel sign.

The best thing is that I have a lot of control and freedom over what I write about and what I think about. I’ve found a person’s happiness is directly proportional to the amount of freedom they have. Interviewing people is fun, but I really love writing. Tangibly. I love the process of typing.

The worst thing is that the driving force behind what I do for a living is perpetuated by something that is sort of shallow and secondary, relative to the rest of the world. I invest a lot of time in looking at culture – because to me, it’s important and I like to think of it as a interesting way though which to understand the world – but I guess the fear is that maybe what I’m doing isn’t all that important.” 

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I probably wanted to be a pro basketball player. Or President. When I was 15, I probably wanted to be a lawyer. Everyone told me I should be one. At 20 I think I wanted to be a newspaper journalist – be in a position where I could make a living writing and interviewing people. My greatest aspiration in college was to work at the Star Tribune. It’s very weird when your real life totally usurps your dreams.

You said it’s sort of emasculating to meet people who have more CDs than you. Why? Is it worse to meet men or women who have more?

That was kind of an exaggeration. I don’t really feel that way. You just get used to noticing people compiling lots of CDs. Maybe they know more about music than me? It’s kind of an intellectual thing.

How do you feel about Canada?

I love Canada. I loved being in Vancouver. I’m going to be going to Toronto soon … I used to love going to Winnipeg. And it’s interesting, I think because I’m from North Dakota, people think I’m almost Canadian myself.

Anything you really regret writing in Spin? And what was it?

Hmmm. Everything? Regret may be too strong of a word. Everything I‘ve ever written, when I go back and reread it, I wish I could rewrite it.

Here’s one thing I wish I hadn’t done – I made a pretty obvious mistake. I thought that if I made it really clear that this was a narcissistic project, that if I was self-aware and I put that right in the text, people wouldn’t focus on that, but it’s become the only thing people write about or talk about. I never should have brought it up. Admitting that I saw what would be a failing of this book has become too easy a thing for other writers to focus on.

It’s confusing to me. Some people don’t like self-awareness in writing. And that’s strange to me because to me I just think that it means that writer is smart … When I wrote this book, I wanted to think about it the same way as I would think about a book by someone else. If there were flaws or weaknesses, I’d make it clear that I was aware of that, but I guess most people don’t think of it like I do. They have this idea of what a book is supposed to be. So it was an attempt to show self-awareness, but that’s not what happened.

Do you think your writing gives people a true and accurate impression of who you are?

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

I think if somebody were to read all three of my books, they would probably have a pretty good understanding of what I’m like. It wouldn’t be perfect, and it wouldn’t be identical, but they’d have a good idea.

Certainly, you do things when you write, you exaggerate certain things. So it’s sort of a hyper-real version of yourself, but if someone really reads my stuff. They probably do.

What have you been doing for fun lately?

I went to the 40 Year Old Virgin. I was surprised at how funny it was. Movies. That Grizzly Man one – I’m looking forward to that.

It’s weird, because on the tour, I don’t have a car, so basically I’ve been reading a lot. Like, Under the Banner of Heaven. It’s about the crazy violent sexual world of Mormonism. A Scanner Darkly was really good, too. Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis, but I’m not sure it’s as good as the others. I’d almost have him write a straight memoir.

I gotta tell you, you should exhausted. Are you okay?

I’ll be honest with you too. I’m incredibly tired. I’ve been doing this tour for six weeks. It’s been a weird experience. I’ve just gone to the airport so many times at this point, I feel angry at the entire world. I loved this book when I wrote it. I thought it was the best thing I’d ever written. But I basically hate it now. I really wish I never had to talk about it again. [This is the quote I pulled into the piece as published.]

I know I sound like I’m a jerk, but really I’m not.

A version of this piece published in Dose on August 31, 2005. The clip is below.

Published in Dose, August 31, 2005.

2018: I was pretty pleased with myself for asking Klosterman if he was okay.

The first time I used the whole “are you okay?” bit to talk to a grouchy celebrity on a press tour was back in 2004, on one of my very first interviews (with Jason Mraz). It was a really handy way to get a good quote, and this piece is one example of it working well. More book and author pieces are here.