Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana
.jpg) First edition cover | |
| Author | Michael Azerrad |
|---|---|
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Biography |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | October 1993 |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 344 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-385-47199-8 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
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Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana is a 1993 book by Michael Azerrad, covering the career of Nirvana from its inception. For the book, Azerrad met with the members of the band and conducted extensive interviews about the band and its members' histories.
The book was completed in June 1993, and was originally released the following October. As such, the book's content does not include content relating to the touring for In Utero and the band's final weeks. Following the death of Kurt Cobain, Azerrad wrote a new final chapter for the book's second printing, which was released in the summer of 1994.
While the band actively participated in its development, the book is not an authorized biography. However, the book is widely considered the "definitive" Nirvana biography, particularly thanks to Cobain's active participation. At the same time, some critics, including Cobain biographer Charles R. Cross, take issue with the book, claiming that Azerrad wrote the book as a fan and not as an objective observer, which put him in a position to accept myth and hyperbole as fact. Some critics even claim that some of the material in the book may not be the whole truth, but white lies to downplay and hide the excessive use of drugs by Cobain and wife, Courtney Love so they would not lose custody of their daughter, Frances Bean, again.
Azerrad eventually worked with filmmaker AJ Schnack to use the twenty-five hours of interviews that Azerrad conducted with Cobain as the basis for a documentary on Cobain's life. Titled Kurt Cobain About a Son, the movie debuted at festivals in 2006.
