W A S T E D+Y O U T H
COWARDS By W.A. Burgess St. Martins Press, 224 pages Fiction - - - - - - - - - GENIUSES OF CRACK
- - - - - - - - - ECSTASY CLUB
- - - - - - - - - ILLUSTRATION BY ADAM McCAULEY |
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THREE NEW NOVELS TAKE YOU TO THE THROBBING PULSE OF DECADENT YOUTH CULTURE -- yawn. BY ANDREW HULTKRANS | Whoever said that kids these days don't value a dollar? Judging from three recent post-Generation X novels -- Jeff Gomez's "Geniuses of Crack," W.A. Burgess' "Cowards" and Douglas Rushkoff's "Ecstasy Club" -- pulp exploitation is alive and well, only now it's brought to you by major houses and spun as "literature." Voice of the streets. Cries in the wilderness. That kind of stuff. The marketing of subcultural rebellion is nothing new, but rarely have so many self-declared members of 20-something subcultures offered themselves (and their "scenes") so willingly for commercial appropriation. To have Elizabeth Wurtzel's "Prozac Nation" bandied about as a testament to some kind of generational ennui was galling enough. But now, it seems, the deluge is upon us, and three more young authors have produced books guaranteed to embarrass the pants off of significant portions of their cohort. Take Jake from "Melrose Place." Lower his SAT scores by, say, 300 points. Give him a Seattle "grunge" make-over, circa 1992. Accord him the winsome but frankly mush-headed appeal that the more vicious members of the music press grant Evan Dando. Voila! You have Mark Pellion, "hero" of "Geniuses of Crack" -- bandleader of Bottlecap, future alternahunk and unwitting sellout to the evil culture industry mills of a major record label. Take your standard rock drummer. A drummer to whom the following joke could apply: "Q: How do you know when the drummer's stage riser is level? A: Drool comes out of both sides of his mouth." Lower his SAT scores by 500 points. Make him just self-conscious enough that he has a hard time getting laid. You have Steve, the drummer. Finally, take your standard rock bassist. (Why are bassists usually silent, enigmatic types who tend to dwell in the shadows of their frontmen? Because bassists are, by and large, dumb as posts.) Lower his SAT scores by 500 points. Make him just cute enough so he can get laid ... by his hair stylist. You have Gary, the bassist. Now, give these three Billboard hopefuls the depth and dynamism of those life-sized cardboard cutouts usually found in the forms of Marilyn Monroe and Captain Kirk. Have two of them fall in love (Steve can't get laid, remember?) with women with the depth and dynamism of your average posable action figure, say, Malibu Barbie, but like, with a life, you know? Have the author get as far under the skin of these characters as life-sized cardboard cutouts and posable action figures will allow. Have them move around a bit, talk some, think occasionally. Have them do this for 416 pages.
N E X T+P A G E | Some weird sex and bad drugs would have helped | ||||
