I just feel like since the whole psychobiography theme was such a big influence on the way that Shultz narrated the book, I could see why it would kind of make sense not to completely ignore his experiences with abuse, drug addiction, mental illness, etc. as it totally WAS a huge influence on the way Elliott’s life turned out regarding things such as one of the most prevalent themes in his music, his reactions to being pushed more into the limelight, and the mental, emotional, and interpersonal struggles that would eventually force him into taking his own life. To actively ignore or try to dilute the prevalence of those subjects just for the simple fact that some idiot reading might take it as the #1 thing to focus on when thinking about Elliott’s existence would be dumb to me given that the main focus of the book is try and take a look into the artist’s mind and how that took an affect on his life and his music.

I also remember that he talked a very well, awesome amount about Elliott’s humor, his musical influences, the kind of background he came from with his friends and his bands, and all kinds of stuff like that. Also about the reasons why people who knew him would grow to love him so much, and how much of what I might call a total powerhouse of a human being that he’d been, according to most of or all of the people that Shultz had directly spoken to when researching for the contents of his book. When I finished up reading it, I mostly took from all the crazy awesome facts that I learned about him and his artistry, rather than how depressed he was at certain periods in his life. If there’s anything you really found dishonest or problematic about the book in any other regard than I honestly don’t get the resentment for it because I find it more productive to acknowledge all of those things regardless of whether some subjects are easier for certain people to read and get the wrong idea about. I guess my point is I just honestly think it’s lame and not that reasonable to go into a book that’s literally branded as a psychobiography and in turn take issue with the fact that the author decided to occasionally take focus on what was going on in Elliott’s mind, whether or not if what we knew about it was negative or postive :(