Kristin Hersh- Teeth

"I bent over backwards to misbehave," Vic Chesnutt sang in 1993's "Dodge," "It's a holy wonder I just didn't flip on over into an early grave." Like many of Chesnutt's lyrics, it proved to be heartbreakingly prophetic. The indie singer-songwriter was wracked with depression and debt after a car accident left him quadriplegic when he was a teenager. And he'd survived a few suicide attempts before overdosing on muscle relaxants in December 2009. He died on Christmas Day at age 45. Chesnutt's music was spare and despairing, sometimes funny, sometimes angry, often in the same song. Maybe only someone with a similar sensibility — compassionate, elusive, afraid but defiant — could begin to explain the man behind the beautiful songs that have been covered by musicians from R.E.M. to Joe Henry and Madonna. In her stunning new memoir Don't Suck, Don't Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt, Kristin Hersh, frontwoman of the indie band Throwing Muses, proves she's that person. Hersh and Chesnutt had been friends since the 1990s; they toured together frequently and shared the same Southern-inspired oddball aesthetic. They also both battled depression, and much of Don't Suck, Don't Die deals with Hersh's attempts to ease her friend's pain. The experience, of course, was beyond painful: "I watched you fade into yourself, sick," Hersh writes. "Weird-ass junkie retard Christ. Sorry, ex-junkie. The only way you could stop suffering was to suffer some more."