In 2010, as former Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson was coping with the theft of his life savings, he learned that his onetime band mate and long-ago girlfriend Courtney Love had reformed the band with a new line-up, in violation of a contract the pair had signed. During that trying period, he found it difficult to trust anyone at all. But eventually, he found himself confiding in an old friend who was the only person he thought might empathize: Kurt Cobain.

“He just had a special gift with people,” says Erlandson in a phone interview. So, when he started writing about what was on his mind, “I felt like Kurt would be the perfect reader. He would understand what I was going through — even though it’s not really about him, it’s not really about anybody else, it’s just stuff bleeding through from the past, the present, and maybe even the future.” The book that resulted bears little resemblance to  your standard tell-all rock ‘n’ roll memoir. Letters to Kurt is a series of prose poems that serves as a meditation on celebrity, suicide, the strange and bewildering details of contemporary life, and, most of all, the business of finding balance and purpose post-fame. Influenced by research in which he learned that “all these emotions that happen after [someone close to us kills himself] are completely valid,” Erlandson allowed his anger — and even some dark, wry humor — to show through, breaking the unspoken rule that suicide must be discussed in grave and somber tones. If “you numb [the feelings] or resist them, then you don’t go out the other side, to where you can move on,” he says. “They still rule you unconsciously.” … Read More