Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
If you’ve ever been part of a particular musical scene, you know that every stage has its unwritten rules, taboos and, of course, a sense of style.
As a metalhead myself (subgenres of my choice: thrash, glam and power metal), I found a lot to enjoy in John Wray’s sixth novel, Go to the wolves, masterfully depicts the heavy metal scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s through the eyes of Floridian teenagers. But don’t let the subject scare you; like any good novel about one (or several) subcultures, Wray’s latest novel requires no prior knowledge or interest in metal to enjoy it.
After a short chapter that serves as an opening (a method so common these days, one that is often read as if it was added to alleviate the publisher’s anxiety about engaging the reader with a mystery from the start), the book begins: It’s late 1980s Venice, Florida, and the local metal scene is exploding to the point now there is a Wikipedia page dedicated to it. Kip Norvald, whose father is in prison and whose mother is no longer alive, has just moved in with his grandmother and is in his final year of high school. He quickly befriends Leslie Z, a metalhead with a gentle taste for glamor and encyclopedic knowledge of guitars, amplifiers, pedals, and mixes used in bands’ music. his favorite. Kip was completely captivated by Leslie’s expertise, but when he heard a local band, DeathOn Leslie’s stereo, something clicked:
“At first, it hit him too quickly to understand: a hailstorm of hammering notes, a low hiss, a convulsive low… He felt it. felt sick – there’s no way to know, because the lyrics can’t be deciphered… He was offered the same purification of fear, the same purification, the same revelation that the movies about the midnight killer came up: that things are not going to be okay. Not now and never. And that makes complete sense to him.”
As Kip immerses himself in heavy metal and its hostess scene, he is attracted to Kira Carson, another hitman who, according to Leslie, actually has a desire to die. The three quickly became a trio, linked by music and outside status: Leslie was often the only Black at any given concert, being bisexual, and being adopted by her parents. white adoption; Kira, who is white, is nominally homeschooled even though in reality her home is mostly composed of a reclusive mother and an abusive father; and Kip, who is also white, is a literal outsider, their senior year in a place where everyone has known each other for a long time. They find strength and joy in each other, even when the dynamics start to get messy; Kip is in love with Kira, Kira is more interested in older and meaner men, and Leslie is sleeping with Kira’s cousin, a weed dealer who occasionally beats him up.
Their friendship becomes even more complicated and turbulent when the three move together to LA and try to find work, go to concerts, and get used to a scene that resembles a reflective funny house. Florida mirror. For Angelinos, the glamor still lives on, and the Sunset Strip “on a Saturday night was a cavalry of feather boas and button-down lashes, fishnet gloves, and leather ass pants. And the strangest thing is that everyone is frank.” On a typical night in LA, Leslie and Kip attend a party at the band’s house rumored to be the site of Aerosmith’s former headquarters. Kip, wearing tight jeans, a pink mesh vest, and purple Doc Martens shoes, realizes that “all it takes to make the whole scene fall apart is someone, just a random person, looking around. and started laughing.”
This is arguably true of nearly any alternative music scene, but is especially gratifying to see Wray’s characters grapple with the deadly seriousness often associated with metal – a historical genre. . people are scared to the point of absurdity – and began to notice obvious cracks in posture.
However, I was disappointed with the persona of Kira Carson, who, despite her glimmers of real human depth, reads it all too often as a collection of perverted, perceptive female stereotypes. about her own brokenness makes her seem incredibly attractive to all men everywhere. . Kip, Leslie, and Kira are all self-destructive at various points, each dealing with complex emotional pain, but Kira’s main characteristic is that she loathes herself and is almost like want to commit suicide. It makes sense that neither Kip nor Leslie could see her clearly, as they were teenage boys taking part in a scene. and still quite sexist. But in a book that nuanced its characters in a different way, it’s a shame that Kira wasn’t fully imagined.
The third part of the novel, which Kira is mostly absent from, is perhaps its most dramatic, dealing with the very real violence, racism and fanaticism present in the black landscape. metal in the early 1990s – but I’ll let the reader get to the sick and weird details.
Final, Go to the wolves is a powerful and gripping novel about a particular time, subculture, and how people can find themselves in — or might purposely disappear in — fandom.
Ilana Masad is a fiction writer, book reviewer and novel author All my mother’s lovers.
