Books: Love & Death by Max Wallace and Ian Halperin

Smells like conspiracy

By Mike Prevatt

Just before one of the juicier parts of Max Wallace and Ian Halperin's continuation of the you-know-we're-right Kurt Cobain murder theory Love & Death, the authors feel obligated by prefacing their revelation with perhaps the most telling of the book's "confessions":

"In the febrile world of rock and roll, conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen. Every time a rock star dies prematurely, it seems, somebody comes out to claim he or she was murdered. From Brian Jones to Jimi Hendrix to Elvis Presley, theories begin to circulate--that their deaths were the result of foul play."

Irony is not the authors' forte, if only because for nine years, the award-winning Canadian journalists have been so earnest in their attempts to prove that the Nirvana singer/guitarist/songwriter did not off himself in April 1994, and ultimately get the case reopened by the Seattle Police Department. In 1998, the two published Who Killed Kurt Cobain?, which on its face looked like another thin celebrity conspiracy theory, but might've become a Gen X answer to Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter had it not been overshadowed by the less-compelling 1995 documentary Kurt and Courtney, in which British director Nick Broomfield eventually dismissed the murder theory anyway.

In Who Killed Kurt Cobain?, Wallace and Halperin called out contradictions and inconsistencies in what authorities perhaps hastily reported as a suicide just following the discovery of Cobain's body in his Lake Washington home. Even if you didn't hate Courtney Love, you had to entertain the notion that Cobain's wife--often criticized as a Yoko Ono-like opportunist, especially by Nirvana devotees--orchestrated some suspicious behind-the-scenes action before, during and after her spouse's untimely death.

Not too far into the second, slightly less compelling go-round, Love & Death, you begin to wonder if maybe this isn't just all a circumstance of coincidence. Are Wallace and Halperin maybe giving Love too much credit by implying her masterminding of a possibly staged suicide? (They have never officially accused Love of foul play.) With only slightly more sources eager to go on record--and risk Love's wrath--this time around, Love & Death seems barely justified. Reasons for cynicism abound, including its time of release, the 10th anniversary of Cobain's death, and its regurgitation of biographical and chronological information already in Who Killed Kurt Cobain? They even rely on Charles Cross' 2001 bio, Heavier Than Heaven, which Love cooperated with.

That said, Wallace and Halperin would be remiss to not have new findings and legitimate updates, and for this, Love & Death is not time, energy and resources wasted. The aforementioned salacious portions include transcripts from the interview tapes of private investigator Tom Grant, hired briefly by Love just before Cobain died. Though he reserves what he considers the most damning evidence for the FBI should the case be reopened, he gives the authors access to several tapes, including the initial interviews between him and a raving, jealous Love. Here, she finally admits marital woes at the time, suspects Cobain of having an affair with a former heroin gal-pal and prepares for a possible divorce that could threaten an extravagant lifestyle she has enjoyed thanks in part to the royalties from "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The only thing thwarting the tapes' credibility is Love's own lack thereof. She consistently lies and conspires so frequently that everything she says must be questioned.

Love & Death is not all retread. The authors get Cobain's grandfather on record; deeply explore the mysterious overdose death of Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff, occurring two months after Cobain's own demise; and use new toxicology analysis that furthers the intriguing theory that Kurt was so loaded on heroin he was too incapacitated to use the gun found lying on his dead body. Make no mistake about it--Wallace and Halperin are steadfastly on the case, which they present compellingly in question form. But they did that in 1998. Something a lot closer to an answer was what Love & Death should have embodied.