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Talking Heads: 77
A wild, fragmented portrait of the late 70s and the punk scene with a rich and diverse cast of characters including an idealistic editor of a political rag, a pony-riding Boston Brahmin intent on finding herself and shedding her husband, an up-and-coming punkster who fancies evenings at the Knights of Columbus Ladies Auxiliary, an editorial assistant named Topsy Otaka, and more.
264 pages, ebook
First published March 1, 2003
1 person is currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
John Domini
17 books184 followersJohn Domini has won awards in all genres, publishing fiction in Paris Review and Ploughshares, and non-fiction in GQ and The New York Times, and elsewhere. The Times praised his early stories as "dreamlike… grabs hold of both reader and character," and Richard Ford called his ’07 novel, Earthquake I.D., "wonderful… a rich feast." In 2016, J.C. Hallman hailed his latest, MOVIEOLA!, as "a new shriek for a new century." A 2014 selection of criticism, The Sea-God's Herb, was termed "poetic" and "fascinating," in Publishers Weekly. Domini has won an NEA fellowship, taught at Harvard, Northwestern, and elsewhere, and held visiting-artist positions in Italy.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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March 9, 2021Talking Heads: 77 does a wonderful job of creating a sense of time, place and milieu, in this case Boston in the 1970's, all of which is filtered through a great, and even might I say, old-fashioned, in a good way, piece of storytelling rife with alternative weeklies, punks, crumbling marriages and political corruption.
March 5, 2011
One of my favorite Novels of all time. Our protagonist is the ed. of a pub called "Sea Level", and he is trying to blow the lid off of a story about the horrid Prison conditions in or around Boston, Mass. His visit to the Prison is one of the most terrifying scenes this reader has ever marveled at. In the meantime, he has to deal with corrupt financiers, possible marriage implosion, and a talented but misguided staff writer who's into this weird new thing called "Punk Rock".
As the Plot thickens, his mind begins one of the most stylistically brilliant downward spirals ever concocted, as he begins to see the world on two different pages at the same time.
This is an anti-junk, anti-evil, pro good read.
As the Plot thickens, his mind begins one of the most stylistically brilliant downward spirals ever concocted, as he begins to see the world on two different pages at the same time.
This is an anti-junk, anti-evil, pro good read.
March 10, 2015
Post-Watergate late-70s post-modern alternative-press punk blues
August 26, 2011
John Domini’s Talking Heads: 77 is a novel about integrity and idealism set in a time when integrity and idealism are in very short supply.
Christopher Viddich, a former Boston Globe reporter, creates his own alternative newspaper because he wants to expose the corruption and lies that the big media would prefer to ignore. But as soon as “Kit Viddich, Editor” appears at the top of the masthead of Volume One, Number One of his new “biweekly journal of politics & opinion,” his troubles begin.
With this new gonzo journalist identity (he is now “Kit” rather than “Christopher” perhaps because it sounds more cowboy) comes the realization that the corruption and lies are much closer to home than he had originally imagined. “I’m not the mafia” the Italian-American businessman who is financing his journal assures him.
Moreover, as soon as the success of the first issue is an established reality, Kit begins to worry that the stress and pressure to put out the next issue is causing him to “overfantasize.” He complains that he is compulsively inventing newspapers in his mind. Is he merely living out a Lone Ranger fantasy? Who is he to expose the truth when he is having so much trouble separating his fantasies from reality?
It takes Kit’s wife Bette, a women named for a Hollywood film icon, to point out to him that he really is behaving like a hero—a flawed, tragic one.
Like Hamlet, Kit begins to despair that the “words, words, words” that are used to create the conflicting “realities” that seem to be closing in on him may all be completely empty. Like Oedipus, the more Kit insists on the need to expose the truth, the clearer it becomes that he is the one with something terrible to hide.
Much like a Greek tragedy, a chorus of voices interrupts the narrative of the novel to comment on the action. But unlike the chorus in an ancient play, these voices are all coming from within the protagonist’s head. They appear in the form of the newspapers columns that Kit keeps composing and laying out in his mind. Unlike Kit’s real newspaper, Kit’s mind newspaper is filled with scathing attacks, not on the Man, but on himself.
Much of the novel’s tension comes from Kit’s fear that his countercultural idealism makes “him like something out of a wax museum.” He imagines the young woman he has hired write about the punk movement saying, “We prefer a different brand of trouble, in the ‘70s. We don’t buy that Movement guff, times they are a-changin’. We don’t believe the believer. When it comes to counterculture, we’ve got a better idea.”
The novel’s title alludes to both the Talking Heads album of the same name and the media phenomenon. “The talking head. In it resides the truth as we always wanted it—confined to a single simple square of the grid at a time. In it the entire complicated world is reduced to sheer surface—to coat and tie and hair style.”
Although Domini sets his story in 1978, he is really concerned about the issues of today. Camcorders, computers and the Internet have made it technology possible for almost anyone to grab a slice of the media. And yet the twenty-first century blogger faces the same dilemma Kit faces with his alternative newspaper. Once you got your piece of the media pie, what are you going to do with it?
In this novel, Domini uses his unique voice to tell a compelling story that gives the reader much to think about.
Christopher Viddich, a former Boston Globe reporter, creates his own alternative newspaper because he wants to expose the corruption and lies that the big media would prefer to ignore. But as soon as “Kit Viddich, Editor” appears at the top of the masthead of Volume One, Number One of his new “biweekly journal of politics & opinion,” his troubles begin.
With this new gonzo journalist identity (he is now “Kit” rather than “Christopher” perhaps because it sounds more cowboy) comes the realization that the corruption and lies are much closer to home than he had originally imagined. “I’m not the mafia” the Italian-American businessman who is financing his journal assures him.
Moreover, as soon as the success of the first issue is an established reality, Kit begins to worry that the stress and pressure to put out the next issue is causing him to “overfantasize.” He complains that he is compulsively inventing newspapers in his mind. Is he merely living out a Lone Ranger fantasy? Who is he to expose the truth when he is having so much trouble separating his fantasies from reality?
It takes Kit’s wife Bette, a women named for a Hollywood film icon, to point out to him that he really is behaving like a hero—a flawed, tragic one.
Like Hamlet, Kit begins to despair that the “words, words, words” that are used to create the conflicting “realities” that seem to be closing in on him may all be completely empty. Like Oedipus, the more Kit insists on the need to expose the truth, the clearer it becomes that he is the one with something terrible to hide.
Much like a Greek tragedy, a chorus of voices interrupts the narrative of the novel to comment on the action. But unlike the chorus in an ancient play, these voices are all coming from within the protagonist’s head. They appear in the form of the newspapers columns that Kit keeps composing and laying out in his mind. Unlike Kit’s real newspaper, Kit’s mind newspaper is filled with scathing attacks, not on the Man, but on himself.
Much of the novel’s tension comes from Kit’s fear that his countercultural idealism makes “him like something out of a wax museum.” He imagines the young woman he has hired write about the punk movement saying, “We prefer a different brand of trouble, in the ‘70s. We don’t buy that Movement guff, times they are a-changin’. We don’t believe the believer. When it comes to counterculture, we’ve got a better idea.”
The novel’s title alludes to both the Talking Heads album of the same name and the media phenomenon. “The talking head. In it resides the truth as we always wanted it—confined to a single simple square of the grid at a time. In it the entire complicated world is reduced to sheer surface—to coat and tie and hair style.”
Although Domini sets his story in 1978, he is really concerned about the issues of today. Camcorders, computers and the Internet have made it technology possible for almost anyone to grab a slice of the media. And yet the twenty-first century blogger faces the same dilemma Kit faces with his alternative newspaper. Once you got your piece of the media pie, what are you going to do with it?
In this novel, Domini uses his unique voice to tell a compelling story that gives the reader much to think about.
April 14, 2009
In Barcelona it rained, shoe ruiningly wet, and it was good to get back to the hotel and warm myself up with the crackling energy of this book. Set in an alternative newspaper (remember them?)office in the 70s, it is about, partly at least, the search for integrity, truth telling and whether it is possible given the convoluted situations we all end up dealing with. Like that sentence. How we all get mired in corruption even when seeking to expose it. The writing was fabulous, observant and unusual, eg describing buildings with bowed windows across the road - 'like dark children with mumps', or 'The brother even smelled like someone who needed to talk: a faint reek of metal and machine oil, as if he'd been walking too long amid parked cars'.
Mirroring the crack up of the main character (and others)the writing breaks down into different forms, newspaper columns commenting on the action, diorama descriptions of saints that become the participants, computer printouts, letters, post it notes (or the 70s equivalent), cue and avvy (Q & A) riffs where cue (or avvy) can become Farah Fawcett Majors. All sorts of questions and thoughts are raised and trails followed before you get back to the story. I was drawn in, poked about, enlightened and then bewildered. There were parts I couldn't get at first but wh9ch made sense later, eg Bette's sexual confessions and examination of personal history. There were powerful scenes, particularly the one set in the prison which had me gripped.
It's also about now, and I had some difficulty with this although I know the author was playful and deliberate about using 'online' in 1977, and mentions a world wide web (of passageways of information). It makes you think about whether the media still has a tight a grip now the WWW has allowed people to create their own news, personalise or customise it, and expose corruption more easily or whether in fact things are worse, now we have a Big Brother culture. This is a very clumsy attempt at explaining what was going on in my head as I read.
To use a metaphor Domini uses for the heart - my brain was a humming, dripping beehive after reading this.
Mirroring the crack up of the main character (and others)the writing breaks down into different forms, newspaper columns commenting on the action, diorama descriptions of saints that become the participants, computer printouts, letters, post it notes (or the 70s equivalent), cue and avvy (Q & A) riffs where cue (or avvy) can become Farah Fawcett Majors. All sorts of questions and thoughts are raised and trails followed before you get back to the story. I was drawn in, poked about, enlightened and then bewildered. There were parts I couldn't get at first but wh9ch made sense later, eg Bette's sexual confessions and examination of personal history. There were powerful scenes, particularly the one set in the prison which had me gripped.
It's also about now, and I had some difficulty with this although I know the author was playful and deliberate about using 'online' in 1977, and mentions a world wide web (of passageways of information). It makes you think about whether the media still has a tight a grip now the WWW has allowed people to create their own news, personalise or customise it, and expose corruption more easily or whether in fact things are worse, now we have a Big Brother culture. This is a very clumsy attempt at explaining what was going on in my head as I read.
To use a metaphor Domini uses for the heart - my brain was a humming, dripping beehive after reading this.
March 24, 2011
This novel is so different from Domini's other books- not that I'm talking in a good/bad kind of way. I enjoyed each, but this one just seems so much different in tone, characterization, and style than either "A Tomb on the Periphery" or "Earthquake I.D." It really shows that Domini has an impressive range in how he can write and what he can write about. This one is more cerebrally intensive than his other books, but just as enjoyable.
Want to read
April 3, 2011John Domini is my bookfriend, and when I asked him which of his books I should read first, he said Earthquake. But then I read the blurb for this one and it just sounded so good! So maybe I'll disobey him & read this first.
December 8, 2008
John's first novel, and newly released when I met him. "Talking Heads: 77" is one of the gems of small press. Gritty and surreal, with a satisfying finish.
May 27, 2016
A very interesting story about a would-be newspaper man in Boston. While I enjoyed the style quite a bit, it was sometimes difficult to follow what was going on. Perhaps that was the point. The characters are compelling, and I looked forward to getting to know them as I read the book. At points it's very funny, and at others it's poignant. I can recommend it to stretch the fiction-reading muscles a bit.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews