Stuff for the Teen Age, Popular Music

The Legacy of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana in YA Fiction by Anne Rouyer, Supervising Librarian, Mulberry Street LibraryFebruary 20, 2015

"Come as you are, as you were / As I want you to be / As a friend, as a friend / As an old enemy..."
Friends

On April 5, 1994, I was living and working in downtown Seattle. I remember very clearly how a co-worker came running into work that afternoon to announce that Kurt Cobain, the lead singer for Nirvana, had been found dead just a few miles away, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head (remember there were no cell phones or social media to alert us). We were devastated. Nirvana’s music meant so much to us. They were one of the reasons why some of us lived there, why we had fallen in love with punk and the local music scene, why some of my friends were in bands or working in the music industry. In the rain soaked Seattle of the early '90s, grunge rock was the soundtrack to our lives and Kurt and Nirvana were at its center.

Kurt’s voice and lyrics were brash, terse, angry and raw. He represented non-conformity and the virtue of not fitting in. He was a square peg in a round hole and so were the rest of us who gathered, a few rainy days later at Seattle Center to say goodbye at an impromptu memorial service. There was chaos and crying. People sang and moshed. Nirvana’s songs and lyrics were a cure for our troubles, they connected us and now they were bringing us together one last time.

Twenty one years on, his legacy continues in two recent YA books Carnival at Bray and Love Letters to the Dead. Both books examine the power of music and words to bring people together, inspire us and give us hope.

bray

Carnival at Bray by Jessi Anne Foley (2014)
Set in 1993 and ‘94, Maggie is uprooted from her life in Chicago and forced to move to a small coastal town in Ireland with her mother, sister and new stepfather. Unlike her younger sister, she doesn’t fit in or make friends right away. She misses her grandmother and screw-up of a rocker uncle, Kevin, who discusses books and music with her. He took her to see the Smashing Pumpkins for her first concert and now he sends her care packages of Twizzlers and Spin magazine. He encourages her to be different and strong and to not be afraid of living her own life. When tragedy strikes, Maggie embarks on a forbidden trip to Rome (with a cute Irish boy) to see Nirvana in concert. Through it all Maggie begins to see that she is much stronger and braver than she ever thought she could be.

Full disclosure: any novel set in Ireland I am probably going to love and this is no exception. Smart, touching, complex, sweet... this novel has it all. Maggie is a character that is easy to root for and the Irish setting comes alive, you practically feel the spray from the cold, grey Irish Sea on your face. By setting the book in the '90s, Foley manages to jettison all the annoying technology that would help Maggie’s parents track her down as well as give the book a great musical soundtrack. Kurt and Nirvana are always there, just off-page, bringing meaning to Kevin’s life and being the inspiration for Maggie’s journey(s). Ultimately, while the music is the catalyst and connector, the book stresses the importance of family: the ones we are born with and the ones we make for ourselves.

Love

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira (2014)
Laurel is devastated by the death of her sister May. As part of a school assignment, she has to write a letter to someone who’s died. Laurel chooses to write to Kurt Cobain, her sister’s favorite singer but she doesn’t stop there. She continues to write other dead celebrities, including: Janis Joplin, River Phoenix, Heath Ledger, Amy Winehouse... pouring out her heart and guilt about what really happened the night her sister passed away. Through these letters, she discovers meaning and messages in the deceased celebrities' lives and in her own life as well. Slowly, Laurel starts to piece together her fractured family, understand her sister more fully, make new friends and fall in love and simply begins to live again.

This is a beautifully written novel full of poetry and melancholia. In the letters she writes, Laurel is reaching out and trying to find any kind of understanding for her sister’s death. The book emphasizes the power of words, poetry and music to make a difference in our lives. Laurel begins her letter-writing journey with Kurt and the Nirvana album In Utero, which was her sister’s favorite—especially the song “All Apologies”—which Laurel sees as her sister apologizing for not living up to everyone’s expectations, most of all her own.

"What else should I be / All apologies / What else could I say / Everyone is gay / What else could I write / I don't have the right / What else should I be / All apologies..."

Throughout Laurel's journey, Dellaira shows us that there is no right or wrong way through grief—you just find solace where you can and heal the best way you can. As I read the novel, I found myself listening to In Utero and other Nirvana albums and this gave the book a nuance and a poignancy I wasn’t expecting. Yes, this is one of those sad/happy YA novels that may make you cry but like most things that do that, you just might begin to understand yourself and the world around you a little better.

Biographies of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana

rejects

Discography 

nevermind

DVDs

reading

 

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