No, the 3rd Layne Staley Bio Will Likely Not be the Charm
Next year’s publication of Itch, Love Stories About Heroin means that if you've been waiting for a full-length, in-depth book about Alice in Chains' Layne Staley—well, don’t get your hopes up.
You'd think someone would've managed to write a Heavier Than Heavenish Staley biography by now. After all, Staley's voice was as unique, his contribution to Seattle's 90s music scene (arguably) as important, and his death as grisly as fellow heroin addict Kurt Cobain's.
But no. Apparently the only people writing about Staley are an Argentine named Adriana Rubio and her friend, Tanya Vece.
Itch, credited to Vece, will focus on Staley's "last five years of reclusive life" and apparently pull from a last-days phone interview between Staley and Rubio.
This is territory Rubio covered in 2003’s Layne Staley: Angry Chair and retread in Layne Staley: Get Born Again three years later.
We’d never heard of Rubio’s books. And this is probably why:
The writing [in Get Born Again] is choppy and disjointed. There is no cohesion … Layne's mother comes off as a total nut job … It's no wonder that she rescinded her support for this book. The author portrays the other members of Alice in Chains in an extremely negative light, solely because they did not choose to support her project … In the end, it seems that what Layne Staley feared about journalists came to fruition. He should have told his own story or trusted it to someone who really knew him.
A review of Angry Chair kicks off: "[It’s] not a biography of the late Alice In Chains singer ... Rubio barely even cracks a small window into his life."
We’re not cherry-picking—Again has a two-star Amazon rating, with Chair a half-star higher. The distaste is nearly unanimous.
The quality of writing in Vece’s forthcoming Staley book can be predicted via a quick look at her e-zine, The Horse Chronicles, where she’s posted an interview with Rubio. A sampling of Vece’s questions:
"There is no doubt Kurt Cobain was an avid Heroin user- but I don't think he commite suicide... What influence do you think his outward heroin abuse, with Staley's, had on seattle and why?"
"Seattle is the suicide capitol of the world because of the climate... do you agree and do you think it has an effect on the drug additiction there with heroin and other products?"
"If you child had a heroin addicition, and you were in seattle both ten years ago and then now... what would be your plan of action?"
In a recent interview with Ear Candy's Travis Hay, Vece’s answers maintain the wacky diction and phrasing: "I think my book will provoke the question of how does someone, whose voice sells millions of albums and is known throughout the world, couldn't be heard by those who were suppose to be closest to him."
The most telling part of Hay’s piece? His disclosure that Vece’s responses appear "with minimal edits."
Unless the edits to Itch, Love Stories About Heroin are ruthless, we’re likely in for a third awful book about Seattle’s forgotten rock star. Layne Staley deserves better. So does the Layne Staley Fund, which will benefit if Itch turns a profit.
