two books on Neil Young

I read two books on Neil Young last week, in advance of the announcement that his new record will feature a song called "Impeach the President." First up was Kevin Chong's NEIL YOUNG NATION, which Chong calls "a quest, an obsession, and a true story." In it, Chong and his college slacker buddies (ten years after their heyday) drive Neil Young's "historic" route from Winnipeg to Toronto and down through the U.S. via Route 66 to L.A. Chong is a "Rustie," a member of the Internet-based Neil Young cult. It's an interesting project: he combines personal reflection, jokey asides on his travelling companions, reports on meetings with marginal figures from Young's past, and a good deal of biography.

It's that last that's problematic, because although Chong is likeable and funny I kept feeling that too much of his book was cribbed from other sources; that is, from Neil Young biographies. He doesn't pretend that he's doing any original research (except for meeting with those people from Young's past), but when I read Jimmy McDonough's SHAKEY: NEIL YOUNG'S BIOGRAPHY, I felt that a lot of the anecdotes that Chong retells come straight from McDonough, and often in very similar language and detail. If my students turned in work that was this close to its original sources I'd have them do it again and give them a stern lecture on academic integrity. (Chong has since gotten in touch with me to let me know that McDonough and he both took many of these episodes from John Einarson's book on Young's early years, DON'T BE DENIED.)

McDonough's book got a lot of publicity when it came out in 2002, including a NYT Books review by Rick Moody, and it deserves that attention--it's exhaustive, well-researched, and based on extensive contact with Young and his circle. McDonough does a great job of cataloguing the damage drugs did, and continue to do, to Young and his cohorts even when Young won't admit it. He's a perceptive reader of Young's lyrics and a fan of the Crazy Horse work above all. It's not a traditional biography, either; McDonough gets in on the act (fitting, because although Young commissioned this authorized biography he later tried to prevent McDonough from publishing it) and transcribes many of his interviews with Young directly. The prose is at best workmanlike and at times irritating: it feels like none of the hundreds of figures he talks about is introduced without a sentence beginning "Born in PLACE on DATE,..." (Chong also notes in his book that there are significant numbers of factual errors in McDonough.) But in the realm of rock biographies, in which workmanlike competence is still not something readers can take for granted, this is a pretty good one.