Weirdsville U.S.A.: The Obsessive Universe of David Lynch

by Paul A. Woods

In his wildly varied career, David Lynch has experienced cult adulation, mainstream success, virtual rejection by the film industry, and a renaissance in which he created a style that can only be called Weird Americana. Weirdsville U.S.A. charts Lynch’s work from his experimental art school years and the midnight movie hit Eraserhead, the mainstream success of The Elephant Man and the commercial failure of Dune, the birth of Weird Americana with Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks and the neo-noir mystery Lost Highway, to the present day and the film The Straight Story and TV series Mulholland Drive.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Biography

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jessrawk]

An odd book. A large portion of it is just detailed synopses of Lynch's films. However, they go into more detail on some than others, with no real rhyme or reason (see the Twin Peaks chapters, for example). If you've seen his films (which I assume you have, if you're reading this book), it gets a bit tedious. There is not much analysis about the films, so the detailed scene descriptions seem mostly out of place. It is also weirdly, scathingly anti-feminist at times, which is quite unexpected.

[Scott]

Fairly interesting, but very dated. Not much there for die-hard, or fairly well-informed Lynch-heads, but more casual fans may find some new insights.

[Doug]

This book only goes up to the point where ABC dumps the Muholland Drive pilot and is more useful as a plot guide with some background up to that point.

[Miss Nessa]

The "voice" of the biographer is strong in this one and unlike Star Wars and being a Jedi, that is not a good thing. Too often the biographer makes judgement calls and his personal opinion is offered as if David Lynch would agree. His vitriolic and repeated dig at David Bowie and his appearance on Twin Peaks being one example.
I also found the device of "describing" the plot of each project (almost a blow for blow description) tedious and not insightful. I would rather the author have a quick synopsis of the movie/TV series etc and you as the reader can view the piece for yourself. I do not need to "read" the movie.
This is the sort of biography that puts me off reading biographies. Too fawning, too much about the knowledge and purported insight of the biographer into their subject's mind!

[Josh]

A decent overview of one of the few true auteurs, if anybody still uses that word, in American cinema. Succeed or fail, his films are always unmistakably his. Which automatically makes him more interesting than 95 percent of the rest of the filmmakers out there. Weirdsville U.S.A. works as a good introduction to the man and his obsessions.

[Wes Young]

I love David Lynch, and this biography is pretty thorough. It's the first one I've read and I have three more lined up, so we'll see how it measure up. For now...

[Tony Thomas]

Bloody amazing read!!