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John King Human Punk ISBN 13: 9781629631158

Human Punk - Softcover

 
9781629631158: Human Punk
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For 15-year-old Joe Martin, growing up on the outskirts of West London, the summer of 1977 means punk rock, disco girls, stolen cars, social-club lager, Teddy Boys and a job with gypsies. Life is sweet - until he is attacked by a gang and thrown into the Grand Union Canal with his best friend Smiles. Fast forward to 1988, and Joe is travelling home after three years away, coming to terms with tragedy. Fast forward to 2000, and life is sweet once more. Human Punk is the story of punk, common bonds and a shared culture - sticking the boot in, sticking together.

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Review:
In Human Punk, the coming-of-age tale of a Thames valley likely lad, John King yet again delivers an unflinching, frank insight into British male working-class culture. King's best-known previous novels, The Football Factory and England Away, centred on the brutal subject of soccer hooliganism--of the domestic and export variety.

The antihero of Human Punk is Joe Martin: poor white trash from the council estates of Slough. In the novel's first third, set at the "arse-end of the 70s", Joe is a teenage no-hoper into cheap booze and cheaper girls. He's also into the new punk music that has finally percolated down to the Middlesex hinterlands.

King captures Joe's humble yet never-to-be-forgotten adolescent excitements--"the tingle of the cider" and the "smell of Bev's perfume banging into me"--with such empathy and verve that, in its praise, you can't help sensing the autobiographer at work rather than the novelist.

Unfortunately, the following sections of the novel aren't as telling. First it flashes forward to the late 1980s, when Joe is a backpacker returning to Blighty, as the prodigal son, on the Trans-Siberian railway; then it moves on to glitzy New Labour London of the millennium, where Joe is a moneymaking DJ. Throughout it all Joe broods on a childhood incident when a friend was nearly drowned, and the solving of this "puzzle"--his pal's fate--is what provides the book with its denouement. However, these later sections fail to grip the reader as it is difficult to afford the older, harder Joe the same sympathy one gave his youthful incarnation, and without such identification the whole book lacks psychological Semtex.

Fans of King's bleak, staccato, first-person narratives will not be disappointed by his now familiar but explosive insights into the male psyche.--Sean Thomas

Review:
"In its ambition and exuberance, Human Punk is a league ahead of much contemporary English fiction" --New Statesman

"King's eye for detail is as sharp as his characters' tongues, and his creations are eminently three-dimensional: insightful and funny one minute, bigoted and ******-up the next" --The Face

"Unique and brutal fiction...King is a master of idiom and street slang" --The Times

"Human Punk is one of those books where I am just 'yep' from the moment I see the cover until I read through all of the information about it." --Book Riot

"King's most accomplished and compelling story to date" --Esquire

"Evokes the punk era superbly" --Independent on Sunday

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  • PublisherPM Press
  • Publication date2016
  • ISBN 10 1629631159
  • ISBN 13 9781629631158
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages368
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780099283164: Human Punk

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ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780099283164
Publisher: Vintage, 2001
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9780224060486: Human Punk

Jonath..., 2000
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Brand New; satisfaction guaranteed. For fifteen-year-old Joe Martin, growing up on the outskirts of West London, the summer of 1977 means punk rock, busy pubs, disco girls, stolen cars, social-club lager, cutthroat Teddy Boys and a job picking cherries with the gypsies. Life is sweet?until he is attacked by a gang of youths and thrown into the Grand Union Canal with his best friend Smiles.Fast forward to 1988, and Joe is travelling home on the Trans-Siberian Express after three years away, remembering the highs and lows of the intervening years as he comes to terms with tragedy. Fast forward to 2000, and life is sweet once more. Joe is earning a living selling records and fight tickets, playing his favourite 45s as a punk DJ, but when a face from the past steps out of the mist he is forced to relive that night in 1977 and deal with the fallout.Human Punk is the story of punk, a story of friendship, a story of common bonds and a shared culture?sticking the boot in, sticking together. Support Last Word Books & Press and other independent booksellers. For more information about a specific title please feel free to contact us with your questions. Thank you for supporting Last Word Books and independent bookstores. Seller Inventory # SKU201502544

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Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Brand New; satisfaction guaranteed. Trade paperback binding. For fifteen-year-old Joe Martin, growing up on the outskirts of West London, the summer of 1977 means punk rock, busy pubs, disco girls, stolen cars, social-club lager, cutthroat Teddy Boys and a job picking cherries with the gypsies. Life is sweet?until he is attacked by a gang of youths and thrown into the Grand Union Canal with his best friend Smiles.Fast forward to 1988, and Joe is travelling home on the Trans-Siberian Express after three years away, remembering the highs and lows of the intervening years as he comes to terms with tragedy. Fast forward to 2000, and life is sweet once more. Joe is earning a living selling records and fight tickets, playing his favourite 45s as a punk DJ, but when a face from the past steps out of the mist he is forced to relive that night in 1977 and deal with the fallout.Human Punk is the story of punk, a story of friendship, a story of common bonds and a shared culture?sticking the boot in, sticking together. Earthlight Books is a family owned and operated, independent bookstore serving Walla Walla, Washington since 1973. Seller Inventory # SKU20154287

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