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The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club
Where have all the ravers gone? Following his debut, Flower Factory, Richard Foster presents a new batch of psychedelicized, autofictive fairy tales from the Netherlands. The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club introduces a diverse cast of voices - from addicts to grandmothers - who narrate eight short stories dealing with the major social changes that country underwent during the mid-noughties.
We learn of the upheavals brought on by the Euro and the influx of Polish workers alongside the slow disappearance of the British and Irish worker-raver tribes post-Schengen, all set against a backdrop of rising costs, political murders and foreign wars. We also learn of the shock of new party snacks, like asparagus sticks wrapped in ham. Like Flower Factory, The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club is set in the southern part of the Dutch an agro-industrial district that is always changing, but somehow manages to stay exactly the same.
We learn of the upheavals brought on by the Euro and the influx of Polish workers alongside the slow disappearance of the British and Irish worker-raver tribes post-Schengen, all set against a backdrop of rising costs, political murders and foreign wars. We also learn of the shock of new party snacks, like asparagus sticks wrapped in ham. Like Flower Factory, The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club is set in the southern part of the Dutch an agro-industrial district that is always changing, but somehow manages to stay exactly the same.
- GenresFiction
147 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 14, 2025
3 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 17, 2025
Richard Foster's first book, Flower Factory, was novel-ish, but also a personal memoir and a bit of a documentary-in-print about 'foreign' seasonal workers at the 'bulb factories' (flower bulbs) in the Dutch 'Bollenstreek' around 2000. I loved it, especially because Foster is good at making the ordinary somewhat magical. I never thought of 'that time and place' as special, but he made it special.
The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club is not a novel but a collection of short stories, but it can easily be seen as a sequel: same feel, same area, same culture, but it is set a few years later, after the arrival of the euro (and the Poles, and the Romanians), as things are starting to change in The Netherlands and Europe - and Foster's generation moves on.
Foster tells stories about his pubs and hang-outs in downtown Leiden (the music venues, the squats), but he also moves out into the surrounding area, towns and villages, painting a vivid picture of that specific part of The Netherlands around 2004 or so. He really understands the country and culture.
My favorite story here is probably 'Gezellig', in which the author finds himself at what we call a 'kringverjaardag', a birthday party where a large, working-class Dutch family basically just sits on chairs, placed in a large circle in the living room. The dialogue, the snacks, the characters... it's absolutely spot-on, extremely funny, but not because Foster is making fun of it. He describes the whole awkward affair with so much love and compassion that it actually moved me.
Another favorite would be the final story, 'A Slip in Times Saves Nine', in which the author goes back to the old bulb factory where he used to work twenty years earlier: it's abandoned, covered with rust and moss, as the author reflects on his days as a factory worker, making that ordinary place so magical that you start to wonder if the old colleagues they meet around the factory are actually there. They might as well be ghosts, just memories. It's beautifully done.
To me, as a Dutchman, it all feels familiar and recent, but Foster makes me realize how fundamentally it all has changed.
The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club is not a novel but a collection of short stories, but it can easily be seen as a sequel: same feel, same area, same culture, but it is set a few years later, after the arrival of the euro (and the Poles, and the Romanians), as things are starting to change in The Netherlands and Europe - and Foster's generation moves on.
Foster tells stories about his pubs and hang-outs in downtown Leiden (the music venues, the squats), but he also moves out into the surrounding area, towns and villages, painting a vivid picture of that specific part of The Netherlands around 2004 or so. He really understands the country and culture.
My favorite story here is probably 'Gezellig', in which the author finds himself at what we call a 'kringverjaardag', a birthday party where a large, working-class Dutch family basically just sits on chairs, placed in a large circle in the living room. The dialogue, the snacks, the characters... it's absolutely spot-on, extremely funny, but not because Foster is making fun of it. He describes the whole awkward affair with so much love and compassion that it actually moved me.
Another favorite would be the final story, 'A Slip in Times Saves Nine', in which the author goes back to the old bulb factory where he used to work twenty years earlier: it's abandoned, covered with rust and moss, as the author reflects on his days as a factory worker, making that ordinary place so magical that you start to wonder if the old colleagues they meet around the factory are actually there. They might as well be ghosts, just memories. It's beautifully done.
To me, as a Dutchman, it all feels familiar and recent, but Foster makes me realize how fundamentally it all has changed.
February 16, 2025
I absolutely loved Flower Factory when it came out, and this collection of stories continues Richard's uncanny knack for documenting the shifts in time and memory - specifically in The Netherlands and shift-work environs - who and what gets remembered when places change and people move on.
April 6, 2025
needed more birds
March 26, 2025
Very much enjoyed The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club @richardjamesfoster.bsky.social @ortacpress.bsky.social - 8 stories set around the flower factories of Leiden - each centres on an event - a bike ride, a day at work, a party - and the characters involved. Perfect sense of place and time.
What I really loved was the descriptions of the daily grind, the before or after of that, the precarious nature of working life and the regular / irregular people who do it. Not seen often enough in books.
What I really loved was the descriptions of the daily grind, the before or after of that, the precarious nature of working life and the regular / irregular people who do it. Not seen often enough in books.
October 28, 2025
Bit of light fluff, tiny little bit of social history, odd cast of characters
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews