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If There's A Heaven Above
"If There's A Heaven Above" takes the reader on a tour of the Southern California demi-monde goth scene of the mid-1980s, as seen through the eyes of club-kid, Matt. Andrew Demcak combines innocence with experience, sex and drugs, Love and Rockets, with just the right touch of poetry. It is a thrilling ride along the freeways and turntables of that era: when AIDS was new, Reagan was King, and hope was a wounded kitten, cared for by the creatures of the night. - Eric Norris, author of Nocturnal Omissions: A Tale of Two Poets (Sibling Rivalry Press)
275 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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225 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Demcak
13 books171 followersAndrew Demčák is an award-winning, American poet and novelist, the author of six poetry collections and eight Young Adult novels. His books have been featured by The American Library Association, Verse Daily, The Lambda Literary Foundation, The Best American Poetry, Kirkus Reviews, and Poets & Writers. He was selected to be the keynote speaker for the California Library Association's annual conference to celebrate his contributions to LGBTQ+ Young Adult literature.
He has been a finalist for the prestigious Dorset Poetry Prize, the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, The Crazyhorse Poetry Award, and the Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence in Poetry. He did win the Three Candles Press Open Book Award, selected by the phenomenal poet, Joan Larkin, for his first poetry collection, Catching Tigers in Red Weather (2007).
He has been a finalist for the prestigious Dorset Poetry Prize, the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, The Crazyhorse Poetry Award, and the Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence in Poetry. He did win the Three Candles Press Open Book Award, selected by the phenomenal poet, Joan Larkin, for his first poetry collection, Catching Tigers in Red Weather (2007).
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 10, 2016
Cross-posted at Shelf Inflicted and at Outlaw Reviews
Meh.
I so wanted to like this book. It took place during the mid-80’s, a time of my life I’ll always remember fondly. I had a job, a brand new car and my own apartment.
I loved my Jordache jeans.
I loved my very practical and stylish mullet.
I loved my denim jumpsuit.
And I loved Queen, Depeche Mode, U2, Kate Bush, Alphaville, Pet Shop Boys, Talking Heads.
What I didn’t love was that my younger brother was newly gay during a time of ignorance and irrational fear about the AIDS epidemic.
When I think about all the crazy shit I did then, it’s a miracle I’m still alive today.
So, even though I wasn’t a huge fan of Bauhaus or Love and Rockets, I had no reservations about spending time with three crazy Goth kids from Los Angeles – 18-year-old Matt and his best friends, Annie and Suzy.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t warm up to the characters at all. Their lives were boring, shallow, and pointless. Sure, this story explored sexuality, family relationships, drug addiction, and growing up, but it all was done so superficially. Knowing more of the characters’ feelings and thoughts rather than listening to their mindless banter would have helped me understand and empathize with them a little better.
While I enjoyed some of the memories this story evoked, I couldn’t stand being around Matt and his friends after a while. Reading this made me feel like the old woman yelling at the neighborhood kids to stay off the lawn and turn down that infernal noise they call music.
I might have tolerated this story better if it had been more skillfully written and not full of annoying similes.
“Suzy sped home like a wounded animal.”
“Her stepmother’s purse lay like an injured animal on the bed.”
“You’re as useful as a cunt full of cold piss.”
“The words came out like burning animals.”
“He grabbed it, flaying it open with his hand like a surgeon’s blade.”
“The lime bobbed in the bottle’s throat like an unkind comment.”
“The brightly ringing song rolled over us like a golden hoop.”
It’s a nice tribute to Rozz Williams and the American and English gothic rock artists of the 80’s, but I’m glad these kids are now out of my hair.
*Book provided by author in exchange for an honest review.
Meh.
I so wanted to like this book. It took place during the mid-80’s, a time of my life I’ll always remember fondly. I had a job, a brand new car and my own apartment.
I loved my Jordache jeans.
I loved my very practical and stylish mullet.
I loved my denim jumpsuit.
And I loved Queen, Depeche Mode, U2, Kate Bush, Alphaville, Pet Shop Boys, Talking Heads.
What I didn’t love was that my younger brother was newly gay during a time of ignorance and irrational fear about the AIDS epidemic.
When I think about all the crazy shit I did then, it’s a miracle I’m still alive today.
So, even though I wasn’t a huge fan of Bauhaus or Love and Rockets, I had no reservations about spending time with three crazy Goth kids from Los Angeles – 18-year-old Matt and his best friends, Annie and Suzy.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t warm up to the characters at all. Their lives were boring, shallow, and pointless. Sure, this story explored sexuality, family relationships, drug addiction, and growing up, but it all was done so superficially. Knowing more of the characters’ feelings and thoughts rather than listening to their mindless banter would have helped me understand and empathize with them a little better.
While I enjoyed some of the memories this story evoked, I couldn’t stand being around Matt and his friends after a while. Reading this made me feel like the old woman yelling at the neighborhood kids to stay off the lawn and turn down that infernal noise they call music.
I might have tolerated this story better if it had been more skillfully written and not full of annoying similes.
“Suzy sped home like a wounded animal.”
“Her stepmother’s purse lay like an injured animal on the bed.”
“You’re as useful as a cunt full of cold piss.”
“The words came out like burning animals.”
“He grabbed it, flaying it open with his hand like a surgeon’s blade.”
“The lime bobbed in the bottle’s throat like an unkind comment.”
“The brightly ringing song rolled over us like a golden hoop.”
It’s a nice tribute to Rozz Williams and the American and English gothic rock artists of the 80’s, but I’m glad these kids are now out of my hair.
*Book provided by author in exchange for an honest review.
September 11, 2014
I have received this book in exchange for a fair and honest review, many thanks to the author for being brave and believing enough in his work to do this.
What we have here reads like a biography. A tale of growing up and awakening; it contains a soundtrack to sing along to and a setting that you can taste and feel on your skin. The carefully and fully described lives of our three young protagonists invades your senses and invokes visceral memories.
As we delve into the heady and often grotesque worlds of Matt, Suzy and Annie, the adult reader can see their world and wonder at the reasoning of their newly minted 18 year old hearts and minds. The secondary characters that inhabit their spaces, and the sometimes life changing effects that erupt, are drawn with purpose and knowing.
These characters represent the marginalized communities of: gay, lesbian, pretty white female, drug addicted, Punk and Goth in a time of fear and HIV. This tale brings a grittiness and realism to what it was like to be on the brink of adulthood and be afraid. And yet these characters have strength and dignity in their outlook.
The author has written what is arguably a dark topic and theme, all while with elegant and beautiful prose. I found great beauty in these words and phrases and characters.
Did this author inhabit my life in 1986. I am these kids, dancing to this music and hanging out in these bars. And that was very hard to do in the city of Brisbane, which closed everything except the Gay Bars at 1am. So for the trip down memory lane, in a city unknown to me, it still brought back my very own memories. Thank you.
What we have here reads like a biography. A tale of growing up and awakening; it contains a soundtrack to sing along to and a setting that you can taste and feel on your skin. The carefully and fully described lives of our three young protagonists invades your senses and invokes visceral memories.
As we delve into the heady and often grotesque worlds of Matt, Suzy and Annie, the adult reader can see their world and wonder at the reasoning of their newly minted 18 year old hearts and minds. The secondary characters that inhabit their spaces, and the sometimes life changing effects that erupt, are drawn with purpose and knowing.
These characters represent the marginalized communities of: gay, lesbian, pretty white female, drug addicted, Punk and Goth in a time of fear and HIV. This tale brings a grittiness and realism to what it was like to be on the brink of adulthood and be afraid. And yet these characters have strength and dignity in their outlook.
The author has written what is arguably a dark topic and theme, all while with elegant and beautiful prose. I found great beauty in these words and phrases and characters.
Did this author inhabit my life in 1986. I am these kids, dancing to this music and hanging out in these bars. And that was very hard to do in the city of Brisbane, which closed everything except the Gay Bars at 1am. So for the trip down memory lane, in a city unknown to me, it still brought back my very own memories. Thank you.
January 20, 2013
Concerto for Six Voices and Goth Band
Andrew Demcak has arrived at that level of success as a poet that provides him with a wide audience base, eager for his next collection of the sensuous and pungent observations of the world of relationships. So now he tests the waters of his readership (and newcomers) with a novel. It seems a logical step - to push the boundaries of a gift into a new configuration. In many ways the transition is successful, and those ways hold as their core his poetic gifts.
Demcak places us in the summer of 1986 in Los Angeles, a period of time when the disenchantment of society as it stood on shaky legs was either ignored or denigrated by a clack of young people who faddishly rebelled even in dress - the Goth look of unisex heavy makeup and hair color and piercings and chains and leather - in drugs of every sort (prescriptions and heroin and LSD with alcohol chasers), and in punk band concerts. Life seemed, at least to the populace of this novel, movement from drug indulgence to transient sobriety to preparation in dress and drugs for the next concert.
The characters who pass through these pages include Matt, a gay young man searching for love, his best friends - the lesbian Suzy and the straight Annie - and Suzy's lotharia sometimes lover Anya, and the various people who cross their paths. Matt encounters the tattooed hunk Patch with whom he is intimate on first meeting, Scott who is an artist unable to separate form his elderly controlling mother, and other acquaintances who supply our cluster with drugs and alcohol and tickets to punk rock/Goth concerts. The question of relationships, the spectre of AIDS, and the lawless abuse of authority seeps through every page.
As far as creating an atmosphere of a (thankfully) forgotten era, Demcak sets his stage and his performers with stunning accuracy. He even is able to pull us into the pitiful psyches of each of the players by providing chapters labeled with the names of each of the main characters - a clever device to let us see why they fell and behave as they do.
For many, the immersion in this acrid life style could be off-putting were it not for the fact that Demcak wisely embroiders his writing with his usual wondrous poetically influenced prose. Example: `I walked Annie to her car, the familiar stars beginning to come out, one by one, like pin holes pricked in indigo paper. A breeze blew in from the bay, cool and damp, smelling of diesel fuel and sea salt.' Or, `The night was overflowing and ripe with possibilities. The sodium streetlights stretched down the block in both directions life rows of lighthouses burning their warning to passing ships.'
Does the novel work? Most assuredly it does. Demcak is so sensitive to his characters' issues he describes that he captures our attention like a padlock and allows us to truly care about the fragile needs of these outwardly carnivalesque creatures. Despite our first impressions, we end up loving all these characters - and that is the gift of a fine novelist. So Andrew Demcak has crossed the line into prose with success. Now, more poems please.
Grady Harp
Andrew Demcak has arrived at that level of success as a poet that provides him with a wide audience base, eager for his next collection of the sensuous and pungent observations of the world of relationships. So now he tests the waters of his readership (and newcomers) with a novel. It seems a logical step - to push the boundaries of a gift into a new configuration. In many ways the transition is successful, and those ways hold as their core his poetic gifts.
Demcak places us in the summer of 1986 in Los Angeles, a period of time when the disenchantment of society as it stood on shaky legs was either ignored or denigrated by a clack of young people who faddishly rebelled even in dress - the Goth look of unisex heavy makeup and hair color and piercings and chains and leather - in drugs of every sort (prescriptions and heroin and LSD with alcohol chasers), and in punk band concerts. Life seemed, at least to the populace of this novel, movement from drug indulgence to transient sobriety to preparation in dress and drugs for the next concert.
The characters who pass through these pages include Matt, a gay young man searching for love, his best friends - the lesbian Suzy and the straight Annie - and Suzy's lotharia sometimes lover Anya, and the various people who cross their paths. Matt encounters the tattooed hunk Patch with whom he is intimate on first meeting, Scott who is an artist unable to separate form his elderly controlling mother, and other acquaintances who supply our cluster with drugs and alcohol and tickets to punk rock/Goth concerts. The question of relationships, the spectre of AIDS, and the lawless abuse of authority seeps through every page.
As far as creating an atmosphere of a (thankfully) forgotten era, Demcak sets his stage and his performers with stunning accuracy. He even is able to pull us into the pitiful psyches of each of the players by providing chapters labeled with the names of each of the main characters - a clever device to let us see why they fell and behave as they do.
For many, the immersion in this acrid life style could be off-putting were it not for the fact that Demcak wisely embroiders his writing with his usual wondrous poetically influenced prose. Example: `I walked Annie to her car, the familiar stars beginning to come out, one by one, like pin holes pricked in indigo paper. A breeze blew in from the bay, cool and damp, smelling of diesel fuel and sea salt.' Or, `The night was overflowing and ripe with possibilities. The sodium streetlights stretched down the block in both directions life rows of lighthouses burning their warning to passing ships.'
Does the novel work? Most assuredly it does. Demcak is so sensitive to his characters' issues he describes that he captures our attention like a padlock and allows us to truly care about the fragile needs of these outwardly carnivalesque creatures. Despite our first impressions, we end up loving all these characters - and that is the gift of a fine novelist. So Andrew Demcak has crossed the line into prose with success. Now, more poems please.
Grady Harp
September 24, 2014
rating: 3/5
I was provided a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
I spent the 1980s crawling, chewing on my Smurf figurines, cutting the hair off my Barbies, and hunting ducks with Duck Hunt while making my parents wonder if my uncle was sane for getting a 7 year old a gaming console with a gun. I was probably as far away and as ignorant of the 80s goth scene as anyone could get. But I grew an appreciation for it in high school; even turned in my metal/rocker uniform (jeans, combat boots, band t-shirt) for some inspired sewing creations while listening to Bauhaus because I thought a goth girl was hot and it would mean spending time with her (ending up with a failed teenage fantasy and some awkward situations).
You may think, why is any of that relevant?
Because take away the setting, the time period, the 80s hair and what you are left with is teenagers growing up, experiencing life, and listening to Bauhaus. Its those essentials that'll make this story relevant to anyone lacking fond memories of the 80s goth scene.
It's like the gay goth version of SLC Punk (and if you haven't seen the movie, shame on you). There is a point in most lives when the harshness of reality meets rebellious fantasy and we either change and survive or end up living in our parents' basement at 40 looking like a time machine spit on us. This story is a remembrance of such a time when innocence was lost and it can never be regained again. Except this time it is swathed in the sights, sounds, tastes, and drug-induced hallucinations of the 80s goth scene.
My only reservations are that it was too heavy on the 80s goth and too light on the emotional payoff. I get what the author was doing but I wish we had gotten under another layer of emotional complexity because, honestly, teens are an emotional minefield. For examples, I'd like to have seen more on Scott who I liked a lot from what little I saw and yet we never knew enough for what happened to have had an emotional impact that it should have.
I like how the author tackled so many issues such as AIDS, safe sex, emotional fallout from relationships, drugs, suicide, etc. But from tackling so many issues in such a short read neither one was as fully explored as it deserved. In the end I enjoyed the novel a lot and will be looking out for more by this author.
I was provided a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
I spent the 1980s crawling, chewing on my Smurf figurines, cutting the hair off my Barbies, and hunting ducks with Duck Hunt while making my parents wonder if my uncle was sane for getting a 7 year old a gaming console with a gun. I was probably as far away and as ignorant of the 80s goth scene as anyone could get. But I grew an appreciation for it in high school; even turned in my metal/rocker uniform (jeans, combat boots, band t-shirt) for some inspired sewing creations while listening to Bauhaus because I thought a goth girl was hot and it would mean spending time with her (ending up with a failed teenage fantasy and some awkward situations).
You may think, why is any of that relevant?
Because take away the setting, the time period, the 80s hair and what you are left with is teenagers growing up, experiencing life, and listening to Bauhaus. Its those essentials that'll make this story relevant to anyone lacking fond memories of the 80s goth scene.
It's like the gay goth version of SLC Punk (and if you haven't seen the movie, shame on you). There is a point in most lives when the harshness of reality meets rebellious fantasy and we either change and survive or end up living in our parents' basement at 40 looking like a time machine spit on us. This story is a remembrance of such a time when innocence was lost and it can never be regained again. Except this time it is swathed in the sights, sounds, tastes, and drug-induced hallucinations of the 80s goth scene.
My only reservations are that it was too heavy on the 80s goth and too light on the emotional payoff. I get what the author was doing but I wish we had gotten under another layer of emotional complexity because, honestly, teens are an emotional minefield. For examples, I'd like to have seen more on Scott who I liked a lot from what little I saw and yet we never knew enough for what happened to have had an emotional impact that it should have.
I like how the author tackled so many issues such as AIDS, safe sex, emotional fallout from relationships, drugs, suicide, etc. But from tackling so many issues in such a short read neither one was as fully explored as it deserved. In the end I enjoyed the novel a lot and will be looking out for more by this author.
September 24, 2014
Matt his friends Annie and Suzy are teenage club kids in 1986 Los Angeles. This had the potential to be lots of fun but fell flat. Matt can never co-ordinate with his new guy, Patch, who's a druggie and a thief. Suzy's girlfriend cheated on her and Suzy wants Annie, but it isn't mutual. While the three main characters are likeable enough, I wasn't rooting for any couple to work out. And the hijinks were the same night after night, get drunk or high at a club or party. The main drama surrounded a bogus concert ticket purchase and a pointless death. There was discussion of HIV, but no partner consequences or sex post-test. It's an interesting slice of life piece if you were that age then, or if you were into that scene but it is neither for me. It is also a great look at teenage music collecting and fandom. The seriousness of music was fun. This review is provided due to a free copy from Don't Buy My Love.
April 8, 2018
Andrew Demcak's *If There's A Heaven Above* unfurls like an alternate universe John Hughes' movie, with a fabulous soundtrack by Love & Rockets, Siouxsie and The Banshees, This Mortal Coil, and Bauhaus. The story of these young friends navigating love, sex and heartbreak in the LA goth scene of the 80s is brilliantly rendered by Demcak. I read it in one sitting. You will, too.
- Collin Kelley, author of *Conquering Venus* and *Remain In Light.*
- Collin Kelley, author of *Conquering Venus* and *Remain In Light.*
June 24, 2021
I could not finish this book. It was far too dark and disturbing.
January 21, 2013
Character-driven, stylish, and keenly detailed, Andrew Demcak's debut novel is a superfine evocation of the teenaged Gothic lifestyle in the summer of 1986 in Los Angeles and environs. Its main characters, Matt, Suzy, and Annie (gay, lesbian, straight, if that word can be applied to so determinedly individualistic a character, as are all the characters), party endlessly, popping Valium and LSD, washed down with quantities of alcohol, and searching for love and the hot ticket to see Love and Rockets. In the midst of this 80s madness is the even crazier and wildly sexy Patch, elusive as a lost chord. Better than "Less Than Zero." Read it.
December 9, 2017
Darkness shrouds suburban kids. Goth is what they eat and breath. If you haven’t read this book, you’re a poser.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews