“Journalist and debut author Fisher draws on a wealth of interviews with Elliot Smith’s friends, family, and colleagues for this revealing biography of the indie singer-songwriter… Fisher does nimble work in burrowing beneath the tortured artist stereotype to paint Smith as a sensitive, giving, eccentric, and sometimes obstinate musician whose ability to feel deeply was both his gift and his downfall. For Smith’s fans, this is a must.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Readers of this book will be left with the impression of a poet who spent his short life in a state of disheveled sweetness, rapturous silliness, and inexhaustible pain. The bighearted biography that Smith and his acolytes deserve.” —Kirkus
“A beautiful, deeply felt inquiry into the life and work of one of pop music’s last great enigmas. Nobody Broke Your Heart goes beyond biography and instead becomes a search for the soul of Elliott Smith. Jamie Fisher has delivered a fully dimensional, psychologically revealing portrait that brings new meaning to the man and the artist.” —Bob Mehr, New York Times bestselling author of Trouble Boys: The True Story of The Replacements
“Informed and animated by the same radical tenderness that drove its subject, Nobody Broke Your Heart is brutal and beautiful, the best biography I have read in years. Jamie Fisher’s encyclopedic knowledge of Elliott’s influences, earliest musical ventures, and childhood is set against the difficulties of his later life and tragic death, a tapestry in which Elliott’s siblings, parents, best friends, band mates, and lovers become characters as vital as Smith himself… For decades I’ve wondered how Elliott Smith managed to distill so much pain into so much beauty; now, I’m asking the same question about Jamie Fisher’s Nobody Broke Your Heart.” —Emily Van Duyne, author of Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation
“It’s tough to overstate the influence of Elliott Smith’s yearning, tender folk songs on the last several decades of American music, and he deserves a biography as good as this one. Jamie Fisher is a meticulous reporter and a deeply thoughtful writer; Nobody Broke Your Heart gives shape to Smith’s devastations and his triumphs, making sense of a life that was equal parts tragic and extraordinary.” —Amanda Petrusich, author of It Still Moves and Do Not Sell at Any Price
“Nobody Broke Your Heart painstakingly overturns seemingly every stone in Elliott Smith’s all-too-brief life and glosses the finds with wisdom, empathy and a depth of appreciation that only a true fan can bring.” —Michael Azerrad, author of The Amplified Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana and Our Band Could Be Your Life
“Like many musical geniuses, Elliott Smith was a complicated person. But Nobody Broke Your Heart treats these complexities with tenderness and sensitivity. Fisher also did a jaw-dropping amount of reporting for this book; as a whole, these interviews with people from Smith’s life illuminate his music and humanity.” —Annie Zaleski, New York Times bestselling author of Taylor Swift: The Stories Behind the Songs and music journalist
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