Book Notes: Meat Is Murder

I found out about the Continuum Books 331/3 series from reading Nick Hornby’s Polysyballic Spree, and he had particular praise for Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice. I’ll definitely have to read some of the other selections after having read this fine novella based on The Smith's 1985 masterpiece Meat Is Murder, which has my favorite Smiths song of all-time ("How Soon Is Now"), it is the only selection that is fiction, and the others are essays. Anyway, Joe Pernice is the lead singer/songwriter of The Perncie Brothers (who I have a heard a few songs by); he has written poetry before, but this is his first published piece of fiction. And what a tour de force it is. It is really nostalgic for me even though I didn’t attend a catholic high school near Boston in the 80s. However, I could really relate to the main character, who was a bit of a Smiths fanatic, and his fate as a high schooler in the Reaganesque 80s, where their was a feeling of the threat of possible mass destruction by nuclear attack. He manages to reproduce the turbulence of adolescence and the ways in which we confront the strum and drang of this difficult time. Perncie captures the feelings of the disaffected youth perfectly. A lot of the details are familiar: pegged jeans, records recorded onto cassette tapes, inclusion into the special membership of punk/new wave-ness, etc… In addition the former importance of the cassette tape is given its due. I remember when I first started getting into new wave/punk I asked a friend to make me a tape, and she made me The Smiths “Meat Is Murder”/The Sex Pistols “Anarchy in the UK” pairing, which I probably played into dust. I’m so nostalgic after reading this story that I will run out and buy both CDs and download them into my iPod for maximum use.

Comments

[Eric]

The Pernice Brothers are GREAT, but their new album, Discover a Lovelier You, is lackluster. I suggest Overcome by Happiness.

In fact, I may have put a few Pernice Brothers songs on those compilations I made you.

[MC]

I think I remeber you praising them, but i checked the compilations-no Pernice Borthers, but Mike V. put "All I Know" from Overcoem By Haappiness on a compilation for me. Nick Hornby is a big fan, so perhaps I'll have to get the album.

Do you know anything about the Decembersits(apparently from Montana)? The lead singer wrote a memoir about Let It Be by The Replacements for the 331/3 book series. I'm looking forward to reading it. Great album.