Things the Grandchildren Should Know

by Mark Oliver Everett

Overview

A heartbreaking, heartwarming, and oddly whimsical memoir from acclaimed indie rocker Mark Oliver Everett of the Eels

How does one young man survive the deaths of his entire family and manage to make something of his life? The insecure son of a misunderstood genius of quantum mechanics, Mark Oliver Everett's upbringing was "ridiculous, sometimes tragic, and always unstead." But somehow he survived this and ensuing tragedies, channeling his experiences into his critically acclaimed music with the Eels. Told with surprising candor, his memoir is an inspiring and remarkable story, full of hope, humor, and wry wisdom.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312429171
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	09/29/2009
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	207,009
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.58(d)
Age Range:	15 - 18 Years

About the Author

MARK OLIVER EVERETT is the lead singer, guitarist, and keyboardist of Eels. Rolling Stone magazine called him "the Kurt Vonnegut of rock."

Editorial Reviews

Everett is the Kurt Vonnegut of the rock world.” —Rolling Stone

“One of the best books ever written by a contemporary artist.” —Pete Townshend

“It is, like the music of Eels, intellectual, wry and unflinching as it conveys complex emotions with simple, graceful language.” —Los Angeles Times

“Everett captures the drama of a suburban Virginia family bedeviled by illness, early death, and madness, and illustrates how such adversities shaped his striking music gifts—and now this pitch-perfect memoir.” —Elle

From the Publisher

What it's like to be quite talented and yet very alone. One of those musicians whose work regularly graces critics' year-end polls, Everett records sometimes as E but more famously as head of the forward-looking alt-rock ensemble Eels. Normally that resume would be the loudest of warnings for readers to stay far away from this man's memoir. In defiance of expectations, however, it turns out to be a straightforward and resolutely unpretentious take on a life overflowing with gratuitous tragedy. Graced with brooding, inattentive parents and a loving but terminally unhinged sister, all of whom were dead before he could enjoy middle age, Everett grew up in the D.C. suburbs working lousy jobs and wheel-spinning away his life. An impulsive cross-country road trip to Los Angeles and three further years of miserable employment followed. A couple lucky breaks later, he was recording an album, touring the world and calling the likes of Aimee Mann his friends. This could have been just another self-indulgent musician's attempt to commit to prose some autobiographical songs. Instead, it's a harrowing mantra of loss and solitude, as depression and death dispose of one family member after another until Everett has nobody left but himself and the occasional crazy girlfriend. He delivers the bad news in exemplary prose, a calmly assured march of simple declarative sentences, scrubbed nearly clean of any artifice. This is entirely on purpose: "Out of respect for you, gentle reader," he writes, "I'm going to stick with the direct approach." There are times when Everett's style can be too simple, leading some sections to sound more like a tour diary than a memoir. But his refusal to wallow in self-pity-orself-indulgent writing-is both refreshing and bracing. A great big grin of a book, winced out through gritted teeth. Agent: Matthew Guma/The Guma Agency

Kirkus Reviews