Melbourne/Sydney

Growing Up Dead

Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions of a Teenage Deadhead is a memoir based on the experiences and happenings of a lad who travelled America following his favourite band The Grateful Dead. Whilst I don't have much to say about Peter Conners himself, except that he comes off extremely arrogant and self righteous (an association quite commonly attached to Grateful Dead fans themselves). It seems that he spends a lot of time defending the Grateful Dead scene, but in turn actually making Deadheads sound.. pompous.

"Deadheads take the natural advantages they are born with in this culture- skin colour, wealth, education, etc.- and spit on them. Or worse ignore them completely".

It seems that Conners spends most of the book describing each dead show (which all sound pretty much the same) and the other parts of the book are spent sucking up to Jerry Garcia (Dead Member) and literary geniuses like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Just because you mention the beatniks doesn't make you a beatnik buddy! Conners tries way too hard in this book and he isn't likable or in the slightest bit relatable. It's not all bad though, Conners (although contrived) does manage to paint a groovy scene when talking about one of the dead shows when he's tripping on acid, apart from that this book's a drag. I want my $30 back!