review: here we are now by charles r. cross

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Twenty years ago today I was heading home from the mall when a DJ came on to say Kurt Cobain had been found dead in his Seattle home. Charles R. Cross knows where he was too—at The Rocket, the now-defunct Seattle biweekly paper where he was editor. Cross opens Here We Are Now with how he got the news from the KXRX DJ who broke the story. This is not a Cobain biography (for that, see Cross’s Heavier Than Heaven); it is a book about, as the subtitle says, “the lasting impact of Kurt Cobain.” Cross explores the “grunge” movement in both music and fashion (documenting some of the hilarious missteps of top designers) along with Nirvana’s lasting legacy and how Cobain’s former hometown of Aberdeen has mixed feelings about him. After these two decades, it was great to revisit the times of someone Cross calls “the last rock star” and see how his music has sustained over the years.
5/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, It Books.