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A Poor Man's High Fidelity? Never Mind Nirvana, by Mark Lindquist
Sometimes it's fun to read a book without knowing anything about it. When our Editor-in-Chief said, "Review Never Mind Nirvana, please," I removed the dust jacket, cracked the binding and jumped on in. It seems, however, that this makes me a much tougher critic. I found myself daring the book to prove something to me; "Okay Mark Lindquist," I could be heard to mutter, "make me like this." I gotta tell ya, at first, I did not like Never Mind Nirvana. Was it my demanding attitude? I don't know. Shouldn't I be demanding? Or maybe I just sensed some sort of irritating cockiness seeping from the book's pages. It begins with a description of our hero Pete Tyler, who we find out immediately is a music fan. Right off, this puts me on my guard. I'm a huge devotee of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. I almost didn't see the film because I worried that it would sully the delicious lingering taste the book left in my head (The movie is darned good though. And really, can John Cusack do any wrong? I think not.). And I'm worrying, "Oh no, this is just gonna be a poor man's stinkin' American version of High Fidelity." We're hit with detailed description of every single song and artist this Pete's listening to. Of course I'm also judging Pete and therefore the book by his taste in music. (I swear I'm generally a very nice person.) Then we get ye olde street map of Seattle. You know, "Pete exits the building onto Western Avenue near the Harbor Steps," etc. Now this could well just be me (and it is my damn review, so what of it?), but I find that often hyper-specific detail about settings in books smacks of immature writing. Why you ask? 'Cause that's what I used to do in college! In fact, I lived in Seattle and I can't tell you with how many short stories I attempted to impress my professor by my knowledge of The Emerald City's highways and byways. So great, we're in post-grunge Seattle with a music freak. But wait, five paragraphs into this review and it's time for me to finally mention that it's actually a good book, and it did force me to like it. Pete's no loser - not completely at least. He was actually in a seminal grunge band. He dropped out to get a life. He's a deputy prosecutor now, yet he's still cool enough to dig music and constantly seek it out live. Okay, we can respect this guy. And, like our dear boy in High Fidelity, he's a semi-immature dude trying to grow up. I'm surprised when Pete's got to prosecute one of his former grunge peers in a date rape case. I'm delighted that he starts getting somewhere in his quest to grow the fuck up, understand women, and understand himself. He's not predictable and two dimensional - the guy's a legit complicated human who does wise things and stupid things. He's funny and I like him! Good golly! All right, Mr. Lindquist, you've done it, I like your book. Even if your photo on the jacket is terrifying! Damn lucky I didn't see that when I first picked the thing up. --Joanna Rubiner |
