Who knew Zack Morris could translate into literature?

I have a new favorite author. Well, favorite is probably too strong a word, but I just discovered this guy and I suddenly want to read everything he’s ever written. In the last week, I have read two books by Chuck Klosterman. One being, “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs” and the other being, “Killing Yourself to Live.” The former is a collection of short essays providing commentary on pop culture, life in general, and the author’s life in particular. The second book begins under the guise of the author taking a road trip to all sorts of locations where rock stars died, but really that premise is just the jumping off point for the author to provide commentary on pop culture, life in general and his life in particular.

I feel weird calling these books “great” because in the conventional sense of literature, most educated people would probably call these two books puerile, self-indulgent and full of “philosophy for idiots.” Make no mistake, these books are all those things, but beyond that – and as far as I’m concerned, this is all that matters – they are engaging and well written. To give you an idea of the subject matter you’ll find in these books, Klosterman spends thirteen pages of “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs” discussing the significance of the TV show Saved by the Bell. He spends the bulk of “Killing Yourself to Live”, which is supposed to be about death and rock-n-roll, going on and on about his ex-girlfriends. And yet, there was never a point, not one single paragraph in any of these books, where I wasn’t completely absorbed by what he was talking about.

At the outset, Klosterman’s writing reminded me of another of my favorite writers, Bill Bryson. Bryson has written several travel narratives, including the books, “The Lost Continent” which is all about his experiences road tripping around the United States, and “A Walk in the Woods” which is about his experiences hiking the Appalachian Trail. While Bryson does spend a good deal of time describing his personal day to day life on these trips, those narratives are merely a backdrop for him to tell the histories, little-known backstories and personal commentaries of the areas he passes through. Klosterman, on the other hand, uses the places he visits in “Killing Yourself to Live” as a backdrop to tell the history, little-known stories and commentaries of his own life. Similarly, in “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs”, the bulk of one essay about Billy Joel discusses not why Billy Joel was important to pop culture, but why Billy Joel was important to Klosterman.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why would anybody want to read these books, written by a guy they’ve never heard of, about the very same guy who they’ve never heard of? I was wondering this myself as I sped through chapters two and three of “Killing Yourself to Live” where Klosterman completely abandons the premise of rock star deaths and spends fifteen pages talking about a girlfriend who’s not really a girlfriend and who has nothing at all to do with his current road trip – save for the fact that he’s giving her a ride before he embarks on said road trip. “Why should I care about this guy’s girlfriends?” I asked myself several times. And yet, I did, in fact, care about this guy’s girlfriends. And that’s when it occurred to me that while this book probably couldn’t have existed, much less sold thousands of copies, twenty or even ten years ago, the fact of the matter is Klosterman is writing at a time when blogs are one of the most popular forms of written expression. People all over the country spend hours a week reading first-person stories written by people they have never met.

And that’s what Klosterman’s books essentially are – really long blogs about things that we probably shouldn’t care about, but for some reason do. Add to that the fact that Klosterman is a genuinely sharp, engaging and witty writer who often has a dead on perspective on pop culture and the human condition and it makes these novel-length blogs worth the read and worth the recognition.