Mr. Misery

Smith was his own artist. And Nugent, who lived in the same cities as Smith and fully absorbed indie-rock culture, means to reveal Smith as the unique, beauteous talent that he was. Nugent also attempts to illuminate Smith as a person. Detailing Smith's childhood and young adult years, Nugent sheds new light on what has previously been perceived as a dark existence. Smith wasn't always haunted by a consuming depression: He liked to jam on classic rock tunes with junior high buddies; he played football even if he didn't really enjoy it (growing up around Dallas, that's what you gotta do). In Portland, Ore., he established himself firmly in the local music scene and played in the modestly successful grunge-like band Heatmiser. Most significantly, he could do one mean moonwalk. Listen to a downer like "Oh Well, Okay," and picture, if you dare, Smith gliding across the stage, à la Michael Jackson.

In interviews with friends, Nugent reveals how Smith traveled through life unable to escape a troubled and confusing childhood, in which he may have been sexually abused by his stepfather (a veiled and recurring theme throughout the Smith oeuvre). With a crippling propensity for guilt, Smith was further transformed by the hyper-p.c. atmosphere at Hampshire College and became even more self-aware in his straight, white male skin. (During this time, he also changed his first name from Steve to Elliott, because "Steve sounded too 'jockish' ... and Steven 'too bookish.'") Through this piecemeal narrative, Nugent paints a cubist portrait. The childhood abuse question remains unresolved, and we can only assume it connects with Smith's depression and substance abuse. Despite the details, Smith remains a shadowy figure and Nugent's detective work drags.

Nugent does better when he explicates Smith's songs. He identifies allusions to people and places, and points out that Smith made dark references to heroin long before he actually used the drug. The author understands the magnificently thick atmosphere of Smith's music intimately, and submerges us in it. This isn't fan worship; this work reflects real reverence and a genuine longing to understand the artist.

In his epilogue, Nugent at last makes the admission that's been obvious from the start: Smith's closest friends and family, who surface repeatedly in the text, refused Nugent access. "Dear friends of Smith's ... are absent from this book because they don't talk to the press about him and they wouldn't make an exception for me," he writes. He adds later, "I never met Portlanders Neil Gust, Joanna Bolme, Janet Weiss and Sam Coome ... who knew Smith most intimately for the longest amount of time," nor did he meet Smith's family. "If one of those four musicians or any member of Smith's family decides to talk one day," he concludes, "I bet it'll change the way people look at Elliott Smith."

It's honorable of Nugent to concede this and, in effect, recognize the shortcomings of his thorough, albeit rambling, work. Add the fact that Nugent never interviewed Smith himself while he was alive, and that too much of this book is composed of speculation and third-party clippings from fanzines and rock mags, and you begin to understand why this narrative feels helplessly distant from its subject. It's something like watching an anticipated performance from the crowded balcony of a smoky rock venue. The sound is pretty good, and every now and then a brilliant note reaches us, but mostly we're craning our necks to see past the heads blocking our view, trying to catch a glimpse of the intriguing figure onstage and sometimes just feeling bummed for being bored at what should have been a soul-stirring show.

Elliott Smith looked, for a moment, like a Next Dylan. Nugent reflects this when he captures Smith at the height of his success, the performance on the Oscar telecast. Smith, he writes, "became a symbol of something pure and rock 'n' roll and pensive ... something kids could associate themselves with, a quiet guy with a guitar floating in a sea of glitter ... he was a lighthouse in a big-nothing now, the big nothing being the glitter monstrosity of dance-floor music and frat metal claiming the charts."

Yet, as Nugent also poignantly notes, in Smith's songs "the harsh light of his scrutiny shines almost exclusively inward, onto his most personal troubles." Smith didn't lash out at or appeal to the audience in that exhilaratingly infectious manner that artists like Cobain or Lennon did. Smith was a voice to connect with, but also a sad story impenetrable to outsiders. And that's why he didn't carry the torch (or maybe the plastic cigarette lighter) after Cobain died. If he could have widened his musical and rhetorical scope, so many listeners would have flooded in. Instead, he attracted only those who could appreciate a clouded and fragile mood at arm's length.

Elliott Smith ultimately became a Tragic Rock Star. Future generations of listeners will seek him out, but in modest numbers. He would never really have cut it as a Next Dylan. He wasn't good with fame and wasn't the type to speak for a generation. As he sang on his final record, he'd rather "Burn every bridge that I cross/ To find some beautiful place to get lost."

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