Damaged Gods #

by Julie Burchill

The queen of spite does a hatchet job on various popular icons, from James Dean to Torvill and Dean.

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Julie Burchill is an English writer and columnist known for her provocative comments. Beginning as a writer for the New Musical Express at the age of 17, she has written for newspapers such as The Sunday Times and The Guardian. She is a self-declared "militant feminist". She has several times been involved in legal action resulting from her work. She is also an author and novelist, her 1989 novel Ambition being a bestseller, and her 2004 novel Sugar Rush being adapted for television.

Reviews

[SadieReadsAgain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Julie Burchill seems to have built her career around being problematic, often without cause. I first heard of her when I saw the tv adaptation of Sugar Rush and was aware of her as a name in the British journalism/opinion world. So when i came across her being interviewed I was...confused. She sounded like a bit of an idiot, impulsively throwing out shocking statements that didn't always even relate to what she was talking about and seemed to be just to make her seem like some enfant terrible. Maybe she was just bored with the interview...but she made me itchy. My mum had this book kicking about, so I gave it a shot. And to be honest, my thoughts on Burchill haven't improved after reading. All I got from this is that she hates everyone, every cultural sub-group, every race, every country. I get that she's smashing the myths around major historical figures and movements, and I did find that very interesting. But in the process she was just spraying out bile in every direction, and it got to be quite a slog to wade through it. That's not to say this book isn't good, in its way. It's very well researched and fascinating for a reader who doesn't know certain things about, say, teen culture through the ages or the figures of the black civil rights movements. But even making exceptions for how dated this book and its (now quite offensive) language are, it is an uncomfortable read. Even when she is apparently championing a cause, she will pull out the absolute most vile turn of phrase which shows that all her research can't quite shroud either her ignorance or her almost desperate desire to be seen as edgy.