Benjamin Nugent: Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing

When American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith was found dead in October 2003 aged 34, it hardly came as a surprise to many of his small but loyal following. Smith's lyrics had been suffused with gloom, and his depressive personality combined with intermittent drug addictions made his early demise seem all but inevitable.

What did surprise was the manner of his death: he was apparently discovered by his girlfriend with two stab wounds to the chest from a kitchen knife. He died from his wounds an hour later in hospital.

There were suspicions that this might not have been a self-inflicted death. Rumours gained momentum when the coroner noted there were no hesitation wounds (stabbing suicides typically make a trial cut or two) and that the girlfriend initially wouldn't speak to police.

It was also said that in the days leading up to his death Smith was cleaning himself up and talking about getting married.

Set against that was that Smith had lived a needy, dependent life punctuated by severe bouts of depression, threats of suicide, and heroin addiction.

Best known for his Oscar-nominated single Miss Misery on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack in 1998 — Smith was a complex character and, if this flawed but nonetheless interesting biography is to be believed, somewhat of a pain to be around.

When he first embarked on a song-writing career he repeatedly wrote and spoke of using heroin (he didn't at the time), which had supportive friends gathering to help him through his self-pitying days. His unspoken threat was that if he didn't get love and attention he'd become a junkie. His music was saturated by self-disappointment, needles, the blissful release and the dark corners. He seems to have been an emotional black hole, sucking in friends and acquaintances alike.

However, he also created haunting and beautiful music, and his following steadily grew. His posthumous album From a Basement on the Hill has received widespread critical praise.

Being dead so young adds to the allure and mystery of Smith who hardly revealed himself in interviews, so this biography by longtime fan Nugent, who has written for Time and New York magazine, will doubtless be snapped up and scoured for clues.

Already panned overseas for its failure to talk with Smith's closest friends, Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing is better than some have allowed. Sure, it is peppered with small errors, but in piecing together Smith's early life and what shaped him, the author reveals the making of a sensitive singer-songwriter who moved from being a happy kid into the Beatles, to one who explored the inner terrain with sometimes forensic efficiency.

* Graham Reid is an Auckland writer and critic.
* Da Capo, $59.95