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The Future Won't Be Long: A Novel
“A brilliant re-creation of a disappeared New York of cheap rents, club kids and Bret Easton Ellis. . . . You can’t stop time’s passage, this absorbing novel reminds us. You can only find someone to love to help you survive it.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“Have you been pining for tales of drug-fueled big-city debauchery set in the pre-digital era, when MTV was king, people still used landlines and hookups were orchestrated on dance floors instead of dating apps? Look no further.” —The Washington Post
“Hard not to recommend. . . . Full of delightfully cynical aphorisms. . . . At the heart of The Future Won’t Be Long is the friendship between Baby and Adeline—at once loving and destructive and convincingly drawn by Kobek.” —Kevin Nguyen, GQ.com
A euphoric, provocative novel about friendship, sex, art, clubbing, and ambition set in 1980s and ’90s New York City, from the author of I Hate the Internet
When Adeline, a wealthy art student, chances upon a young man from the Midwest known only as Baby in a shady East Village squat, the two begin a fiery friendship that propels them through a decade of New York life. In the apartments and bars of downtown Manhattan to the infamous nightclub The Limelight, Adeline is Baby’s guardian angel, introducing him to a city not yet overrun by gentrification. They live through an era of New York punctuated by the deaths of Warhol, Basquiat, Wojnarowicz, and Tompkins Square Park. Adeline is fiercely protective of Baby, even bringing him home with her to Los Angeles, but he soon takes over his own education. Once just a kid off the bus from Wisconsin, Baby relishes ketamine-fueled clubbing nights and acid days in LA, and he falls deep into the Club Kid twilight zone of sexual excess.
As Adeline develops into the artist she never really expected to become and flees to the nascent tech scene in San Francisco, Baby faces his own desire for artistic expression and recognition. He must write his way out of clubbing life, and their friendship, an alliance that seemed nearly impenetrable, is tested and betrayed, leaving each unmoored as the world around them seems to be unraveling. Riotously funny and wise, The Future Won't Be Long is an ecstatic, propulsive novel coursing with a rare vitality, an elegy to New York and to the relationships that have the power to change—and save—our lives.
“Have you been pining for tales of drug-fueled big-city debauchery set in the pre-digital era, when MTV was king, people still used landlines and hookups were orchestrated on dance floors instead of dating apps? Look no further.” —The Washington Post
“Hard not to recommend. . . . Full of delightfully cynical aphorisms. . . . At the heart of The Future Won’t Be Long is the friendship between Baby and Adeline—at once loving and destructive and convincingly drawn by Kobek.” —Kevin Nguyen, GQ.com
A euphoric, provocative novel about friendship, sex, art, clubbing, and ambition set in 1980s and ’90s New York City, from the author of I Hate the Internet
When Adeline, a wealthy art student, chances upon a young man from the Midwest known only as Baby in a shady East Village squat, the two begin a fiery friendship that propels them through a decade of New York life. In the apartments and bars of downtown Manhattan to the infamous nightclub The Limelight, Adeline is Baby’s guardian angel, introducing him to a city not yet overrun by gentrification. They live through an era of New York punctuated by the deaths of Warhol, Basquiat, Wojnarowicz, and Tompkins Square Park. Adeline is fiercely protective of Baby, even bringing him home with her to Los Angeles, but he soon takes over his own education. Once just a kid off the bus from Wisconsin, Baby relishes ketamine-fueled clubbing nights and acid days in LA, and he falls deep into the Club Kid twilight zone of sexual excess.
As Adeline develops into the artist she never really expected to become and flees to the nascent tech scene in San Francisco, Baby faces his own desire for artistic expression and recognition. He must write his way out of clubbing life, and their friendship, an alliance that seemed nearly impenetrable, is tested and betrayed, leaving each unmoored as the world around them seems to be unraveling. Riotously funny and wise, The Future Won't Be Long is an ecstatic, propulsive novel coursing with a rare vitality, an elegy to New York and to the relationships that have the power to change—and save—our lives.
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First published August 15, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
October 15, 2017
A sequel of sorts to Kobek's
I Hate the Internet
– though I can't help wondering whether this was written first, not only because it's set in an earlier time period, but because it feels more conventional in structure and more naive and hopeful, less existential rage than an irreverent, oddly sweet coming-of-age story. It revisits two supporting characters from Internet, Adeline and Baby, and charts their evolution amid the dynamic milieu of 80s/90s NYC: Baby is a gay club kid/science fiction author (a unique multihyphenate if ever there was one) while Adeline, mortified by her wealthy, pushy mother, adopts an archaic Transatlantic drawl and ends up illustrating comic books under a Russian nom de plume. If all that makes it sound unbearably quirky, there's always a knowing sort of scorn in both Baby and Adeline's voices that makes it smart and sad and funny from start to finish.
The story is a wonderful heady romp through the New York in the decade between 1986 and 1996. It reminded me a lot of Garth Risk Hallberg's City on Fire (if 75% of the characters were cut and it was set 15 years later) with a side order of Party Monster and a dash of I Love Dick. Our leads cross paths with celebrities and notorious writers; they lace their narratives with anger, ennui and hope. They're platonic soulmates, and I rooted for their friendship as though it was an epic love story. The Future Won't Be Long is as acerbic as it is likeable, a sour cherry of a novel. I've probably done it no justice at all here but I really, really liked it – probably more than I did Internet, actually.
I received an advance review copy of The Future Won't Be Long from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr
The story is a wonderful heady romp through the New York in the decade between 1986 and 1996. It reminded me a lot of Garth Risk Hallberg's City on Fire (if 75% of the characters were cut and it was set 15 years later) with a side order of Party Monster and a dash of I Love Dick. Our leads cross paths with celebrities and notorious writers; they lace their narratives with anger, ennui and hope. They're platonic soulmates, and I rooted for their friendship as though it was an epic love story. The Future Won't Be Long is as acerbic as it is likeable, a sour cherry of a novel. I've probably done it no justice at all here but I really, really liked it – probably more than I did Internet, actually.
I received an advance review copy of The Future Won't Be Long from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr
September 21, 2017
A bittersweet portrait of friendship between a gay boy called Baby and a straight girl named Adeline from the mid-80's to the mid-90's (with plenty of foretelling of present day national strife), from NYC's pre-gentrification East Village to bland old LA to beautiful but ominous San Francisco and back again.
I love Jarett Kobek's work. It may be messy and he may focus on the strangest details, but nothing about it is ever predictable or borrrrrrring (to quote Adeline). While I would recommend his book "I Hate The Internet" as a better starting place, the characters in this are richer and the narrative has more momentum. His straight characters are sensitive and nuanced and complex, and his queer characters behave like human beings—such a concept! If you can't relate to it, then you can't relate to it, but if you're a homo from Wisconsin trying to be loved in the big bad apple, welcome home. And as always, his writing is scathingly funny.
One last point: the reviews complaining about redundancy are missing the point, I think...aren't all of our friends prone to being redundant? Redundant or not, I know Adeline, I like Adeline, I obsess about haunted storefronts like Adeline, so Kobek can be as redundant as he wants: I'm buying what he's selling. Can't repeat the past? Of course you can.
I love Jarett Kobek's work. It may be messy and he may focus on the strangest details, but nothing about it is ever predictable or borrrrrrring (to quote Adeline). While I would recommend his book "I Hate The Internet" as a better starting place, the characters in this are richer and the narrative has more momentum. His straight characters are sensitive and nuanced and complex, and his queer characters behave like human beings—such a concept! If you can't relate to it, then you can't relate to it, but if you're a homo from Wisconsin trying to be loved in the big bad apple, welcome home. And as always, his writing is scathingly funny.
One last point: the reviews complaining about redundancy are missing the point, I think...aren't all of our friends prone to being redundant? Redundant or not, I know Adeline, I like Adeline, I obsess about haunted storefronts like Adeline, so Kobek can be as redundant as he wants: I'm buying what he's selling. Can't repeat the past? Of course you can.
Read
January 14, 2018DNF at 15%
This novel is good written, no doubts, but I didn't like the protagonists AT ALL. Why someone decided to dedicate a whole book to bummers who have no goal in their lives and who are so uninteresting and boring is a big mystery for me.
***ARC provided kindly by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***
This novel is good written, no doubts, but I didn't like the protagonists AT ALL. Why someone decided to dedicate a whole book to bummers who have no goal in their lives and who are so uninteresting and boring is a big mystery for me.
***ARC provided kindly by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***
Read
April 17, 2019DID NOT FINISH. This actually isn't a bad book, a coming-of-age tale set in the lower-Manhattan 1980s arts community; but the main female protagonist is a character type that just grates on my nerves, both in fiction and in real life, a bratty trust-fund art-school girl who talks in the overly florid, overly pretentious style of...well, a bratty trust-fund art-school girl. I probably could've muddled my way through 250 pages of it, but 400 pages turned out to be just too much, although I would certainly recommend this book to others who don't mind this type of archetype as much as I do.
September 23, 2017
If so, is there time for the book?
The book is past, is, in part, my past, having left Connecticut for the corner of 8th and B/C in 1987, although an earlier memory was of a morning, stepping out of a building on East 7th, with the buildings across the street on fire, and Tompkins Square populated by the homeless living in tents. Trash containers were dangerous because they, too, were usually torched. The bathroom was a public one in the park, or where anyone paused and pissed. Who knew that Dominicans fought with Puerto Ricans? That fire hydrants were there to wash cars? That one day, leaving later because of jury duty, the squatters and drug dealers present in the squat next door would set the third floor on fire, and my third floor apartment across the way would be engulfed, as was that side of the building.
For me, then, the book is like a stack of postcards that you and a friend pick up and remember. The places of the East Village, of New York City in that period. Where you shopped. Where you are. What you, too, read in the Voice on a Wednesday, or in the New York Native on Monday. Or the free bar publications. I didn't go to the clubs. I didn't use drugs. But all of us read about all of it, so could imagine it.
What is missing here, for me, is two lives that are more than cartoon characters, cardboard figures: the point of fiction.
The book is past, is, in part, my past, having left Connecticut for the corner of 8th and B/C in 1987, although an earlier memory was of a morning, stepping out of a building on East 7th, with the buildings across the street on fire, and Tompkins Square populated by the homeless living in tents. Trash containers were dangerous because they, too, were usually torched. The bathroom was a public one in the park, or where anyone paused and pissed. Who knew that Dominicans fought with Puerto Ricans? That fire hydrants were there to wash cars? That one day, leaving later because of jury duty, the squatters and drug dealers present in the squat next door would set the third floor on fire, and my third floor apartment across the way would be engulfed, as was that side of the building.
For me, then, the book is like a stack of postcards that you and a friend pick up and remember. The places of the East Village, of New York City in that period. Where you shopped. Where you are. What you, too, read in the Voice on a Wednesday, or in the New York Native on Monday. Or the free bar publications. I didn't go to the clubs. I didn't use drugs. But all of us read about all of it, so could imagine it.
What is missing here, for me, is two lives that are more than cartoon characters, cardboard figures: the point of fiction.
September 17, 2023
reread this in 2023. it's a five star read easily, i was too harsh in my attempt to read books by not men!!
i broke my 40+ of reading books written by not-men for this, and it probably was worth it, if only for baby's thoughts on infinite jest which are a++.
i broke my 40+ of reading books written by not-men for this, and it probably was worth it, if only for baby's thoughts on infinite jest which are a++.
October 18, 2017
Shallow protagonists who seem to think their lives are more meaningful for having relocated to New York. Cliches abound. "Cornfed Midwesterner."
April 10, 2018
2.5ish stars.
Early on, I was loving this. Getting real 'The Lonely Hearts Hotel' vibe and all sorts. This book seemed charming, albeit in a depressing, calamitous kind of way.
Both everything and nothing happens. Adeline and Baby's chance meeting at a squat in the first few pages creates a firm and dependable friendship. They spend years together, walking the streets getting high, watching cult movies, and partying with the likes of Brett Easton Ellis. There's a lot of sex, drugs, rock-n-roll - and a bit of art.
The narration is split between Baby and Adeline, and is erratic and crammed full of tangents.
The Future Won't Be Long is a satirical look at life in 80's/90's New York City. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and thankfully so, as our characters are far from loveable rogues. I felt this was unnecessarily long, and I lost interest around a third of the way through. Adeline sometimes talks directly to the reader, and she's far fetched at best, so this was annoying to me.
If you've enjoyed 'Rules of Attraction'; 'I Love Dick' or J. T. LeRoy's 'Sarah' - I think there's something here for you.
Thanks to Serpent's Tail for my hardcover, and also to Netgalley for the ebook copy.
Early on, I was loving this. Getting real 'The Lonely Hearts Hotel' vibe and all sorts. This book seemed charming, albeit in a depressing, calamitous kind of way.
Both everything and nothing happens. Adeline and Baby's chance meeting at a squat in the first few pages creates a firm and dependable friendship. They spend years together, walking the streets getting high, watching cult movies, and partying with the likes of Brett Easton Ellis. There's a lot of sex, drugs, rock-n-roll - and a bit of art.
The narration is split between Baby and Adeline, and is erratic and crammed full of tangents.
The Future Won't Be Long is a satirical look at life in 80's/90's New York City. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and thankfully so, as our characters are far from loveable rogues. I felt this was unnecessarily long, and I lost interest around a third of the way through. Adeline sometimes talks directly to the reader, and she's far fetched at best, so this was annoying to me.
If you've enjoyed 'Rules of Attraction'; 'I Love Dick' or J. T. LeRoy's 'Sarah' - I think there's something here for you.
Thanks to Serpent's Tail for my hardcover, and also to Netgalley for the ebook copy.
December 29, 2018
I have mixed feelings about this book and would really give it more of a 2.5 star rating. It was the setting that drew me in—late 80s and 90s New York City and all of its excesses—and it was the setting (and the Michael Alig tie-in, after watching the film Glory Daze a few years ago) that is probably the reason I managed to keep reading and finish the book. It reminded me of my experience reading Otessa Moshfegh’s “My Year on Rest and Relaxation” in that I found the protagonists largely unlikeable (although the did grow on me toward the end) and the author painfully pretentious. Another reviewer described it as “overstuffed” and I think that’s a perfect word to describe it. There were so many parts of this book that seemed shoehorned in un an attempt by the author to make himself sound oh so cultured and intelligent but were unnecessary and even irrelevant. Still, it was a nice enough story of coming-of-age and friendship, and I enjoyed the “club kid” aspects just as much as I expected to.
November 7, 2017
he's no Wallace.
March 9, 2022
Truly did not like this. It’s a 1.5/5 stars for me, and I’ll be generous and round up since I actually went and finished the book. While the author paints an accurate portrayal of NYC in the 80s/90s (I assume, I wasn’t there), he presents to his readers this tale of friendship between two people who absolutely would never be friends in real life. Adeline, an incredibly privileged art school student and one of the protagonists, is quite possibly the most insufferable character I’ve ever met in literature. Every time her chapters came up, I could not stop myself from audibly groaning and/or rolling my eyes. Between her annoying, “not like the other girls” affect she does with her speech and her holier-than-thou attitude to almost everyone around her, I nearly threw this book at a wall at one point. Was the idea to get us to actively root against her? If so, bravo to the author.
September 30, 2020
OGGI È GIA DOMANI
in data settembre 20, 2020

Buongiorno meraviglie
Ho finito di leggerlo questo fine settimana ed ecco la recensione.
OGGI È GIA DOMANI
Autore Jarett Kobek
Traduzione di Enrica Budetta
Uscito il 3 agosto 2020
Editore fazi

Trama
Siamo nella New York degli anni Ottanta: una città che ribolle. Adeline è una ventenne che vuole diventare fumettista. Insieme a lei c’è Baby, un teenager che non dice il suo nome ma si sceglie un soprannome perché, come tutti, vuole fuggire dal suo passato e rifarsi una vita nella metropoli. I due si incontrano all’inizio del romanzo: lui va a stare da un suo amico senza sapere che tenterà di rubargli dei soldi perché è pieno di eroina fino al collo, e lei è in fuga da un fidanzato bruto e sconsiderato. La loro sarà un’amicizia destinata a durare nel tempo, in una New York piena di giovani festaioli, artisti, tossici, figure del mondo letterario che appaiono come camei – un Bret Easton Ellis ubriaco, un Norman Mailer a caccia di ragazzine; ma anche innumerevoli film; nullità che compaiono sui giornali accanto alle celebrità in un mondo in cui sembra normale mettere tutti in evidenza, dare importanza a tutti senza seguire alcun criterio; ciarlatani, pazzi e mancati rivoluzionari; quantità inesauribili di cocaina, hashish e acidi, e la minaccia terribile dell’AIDS.
In questo nuovo, geniale romanzo, Kobek svela l’inizio dei corrosivi effetti della celebrità e lo svilimento del discorso pubblico, non ancora mediato da Internet, ma dai party letterari e dai circuiti della vita notturna. Un modo appassionato, acuto e divertente di interpretare il mondo.
Autore
Jarett Kobek
Trentottenne americano di origine turca, vive in California e dopo un’autobiografia immaginaria di Mohamed Atta (Atta) e altri brevi scritti d’arte ha pubblicato il romanzo Io odio Internet (Fazi Editore, 2018) che, in seguito a un articolo lusinghiero del «New York Times», è uscito dalla sua vita virtuale di autopubblicazione ed è diventato un successo internazionale.
Dall'autore di “Io odio Internet” ecco questo secondo capitolo che è più un prequel perché troviamo Adeline e Baby ma con vent’anni di meno, ovvero nel momento in cui ancora molto giovani si stabiliscono nella Grande Mela.

Recensione
Appena ho iniziato a leggere questo libro mi sono trovata nella New York dell'anno 86. Non la New York di sex and the City tutta sfavillante ma una città buia e sporca. Il protagonista Baby arriva dalla campagna e vuole a tutti i costi cambiare vita dopo che sua madre ha ucciso suo padre o forse il contrario. Essendo un romanzo di formazione c'è il rifiuto delle figure genitoriali per permettere la crescita dei protagonisti.
Baby si trova a non avere un posto in cui stare e in una casa occupata incontra Adeline che lo aiuta portandolo via dalla sporcizia e dai drogati che abitano con lui e ospitandolo a casa sua.
Da qui i due protagonisti ci portano con loro tra Tompkins Square Park Riots, l’epidemia di AIDS e il primo bombardamento del World Trade Center.
《Uno strappo violento che tira via la crosta. Il sangue scorre e rivela la vita quotidiana come una catena di bugie, rivela la carne livida, sanguinante, l'insensatezza degli sforzi umani. Potresti morire, sarebbe un peccato, ma la tua morte non conterà niente. Niente conta. Niente conta mai qualcosa. Non puoi ottenere nulla di importante. E nessuno di quelli che conosci otterrà mai nulla di importante. La tua famiglia è insignificante come il vuoto. E anche tu. Questa è la libertà. 》
Baby intraprende una strada da scrittore di libri di fantascienza e Adelaide di fumettista. Baby sfogherà spesso la rabbia su chiunque offenda la sua migliore amica.
Ho iniziato questo libro piena di entusiasmo perché tutti queste esperienze tra droga, feste e luoghi di perdizione mi aveva fatto sperare bene ma presto mi sono arenata nella malinconia e nella noia della narrazione. Troppe scene e descrizioni che rallentano la scorrevolezza della scrittura.
Non riuscivo a superare questo stato d'animo e quindi ho avuto difficoltà ad andare avanti. Sicuramente è scritto bene e l'autore sa dare la giusta dose di cinismo ma la storia non sfocia da nessuna parte. Sembra una serie tv in loop. Puntata dopo puntata i due protagonisti sembrano girare in tondo. Forse come nella vita reale.
Tra assassini, spacciatori, tossici, alcolizzati, uomini e donne interessati solo al sesso i due protagonisti consolidano la loro amicizia.
Adelaide percepisce Baby quasi a sostituzione del fratello morto. La loro sarà un'amicizia forte e vera. Questa è una delle cose che più mi è piaciuta.
Si può forse dire che l'autore vissuto per 11 anni nella Manhattan di quegli anni abbia attinto dai suoi ricordi visto che alcuni eventi sono realmente accaduti.
Non è stata facile questa lettura. Eppure leggerlo mi ha aperto gli occhi su molti temi spinosi.
in data settembre 20, 2020

Buongiorno meraviglie
Ho finito di leggerlo questo fine settimana ed ecco la recensione.
OGGI È GIA DOMANI
Autore Jarett Kobek
Traduzione di Enrica Budetta
Uscito il 3 agosto 2020
Editore fazi

Trama
Siamo nella New York degli anni Ottanta: una città che ribolle. Adeline è una ventenne che vuole diventare fumettista. Insieme a lei c’è Baby, un teenager che non dice il suo nome ma si sceglie un soprannome perché, come tutti, vuole fuggire dal suo passato e rifarsi una vita nella metropoli. I due si incontrano all’inizio del romanzo: lui va a stare da un suo amico senza sapere che tenterà di rubargli dei soldi perché è pieno di eroina fino al collo, e lei è in fuga da un fidanzato bruto e sconsiderato. La loro sarà un’amicizia destinata a durare nel tempo, in una New York piena di giovani festaioli, artisti, tossici, figure del mondo letterario che appaiono come camei – un Bret Easton Ellis ubriaco, un Norman Mailer a caccia di ragazzine; ma anche innumerevoli film; nullità che compaiono sui giornali accanto alle celebrità in un mondo in cui sembra normale mettere tutti in evidenza, dare importanza a tutti senza seguire alcun criterio; ciarlatani, pazzi e mancati rivoluzionari; quantità inesauribili di cocaina, hashish e acidi, e la minaccia terribile dell’AIDS.
In questo nuovo, geniale romanzo, Kobek svela l’inizio dei corrosivi effetti della celebrità e lo svilimento del discorso pubblico, non ancora mediato da Internet, ma dai party letterari e dai circuiti della vita notturna. Un modo appassionato, acuto e divertente di interpretare il mondo.
Autore
Jarett Kobek
Trentottenne americano di origine turca, vive in California e dopo un’autobiografia immaginaria di Mohamed Atta (Atta) e altri brevi scritti d’arte ha pubblicato il romanzo Io odio Internet (Fazi Editore, 2018) che, in seguito a un articolo lusinghiero del «New York Times», è uscito dalla sua vita virtuale di autopubblicazione ed è diventato un successo internazionale.
Dall'autore di “Io odio Internet” ecco questo secondo capitolo che è più un prequel perché troviamo Adeline e Baby ma con vent’anni di meno, ovvero nel momento in cui ancora molto giovani si stabiliscono nella Grande Mela.

Recensione
Appena ho iniziato a leggere questo libro mi sono trovata nella New York dell'anno 86. Non la New York di sex and the City tutta sfavillante ma una città buia e sporca. Il protagonista Baby arriva dalla campagna e vuole a tutti i costi cambiare vita dopo che sua madre ha ucciso suo padre o forse il contrario. Essendo un romanzo di formazione c'è il rifiuto delle figure genitoriali per permettere la crescita dei protagonisti.
Baby si trova a non avere un posto in cui stare e in una casa occupata incontra Adeline che lo aiuta portandolo via dalla sporcizia e dai drogati che abitano con lui e ospitandolo a casa sua.
Da qui i due protagonisti ci portano con loro tra Tompkins Square Park Riots, l’epidemia di AIDS e il primo bombardamento del World Trade Center.
《Uno strappo violento che tira via la crosta. Il sangue scorre e rivela la vita quotidiana come una catena di bugie, rivela la carne livida, sanguinante, l'insensatezza degli sforzi umani. Potresti morire, sarebbe un peccato, ma la tua morte non conterà niente. Niente conta. Niente conta mai qualcosa. Non puoi ottenere nulla di importante. E nessuno di quelli che conosci otterrà mai nulla di importante. La tua famiglia è insignificante come il vuoto. E anche tu. Questa è la libertà. 》
Baby intraprende una strada da scrittore di libri di fantascienza e Adelaide di fumettista. Baby sfogherà spesso la rabbia su chiunque offenda la sua migliore amica.
Ho iniziato questo libro piena di entusiasmo perché tutti queste esperienze tra droga, feste e luoghi di perdizione mi aveva fatto sperare bene ma presto mi sono arenata nella malinconia e nella noia della narrazione. Troppe scene e descrizioni che rallentano la scorrevolezza della scrittura.
Non riuscivo a superare questo stato d'animo e quindi ho avuto difficoltà ad andare avanti. Sicuramente è scritto bene e l'autore sa dare la giusta dose di cinismo ma la storia non sfocia da nessuna parte. Sembra una serie tv in loop. Puntata dopo puntata i due protagonisti sembrano girare in tondo. Forse come nella vita reale.
Tra assassini, spacciatori, tossici, alcolizzati, uomini e donne interessati solo al sesso i due protagonisti consolidano la loro amicizia.
Adelaide percepisce Baby quasi a sostituzione del fratello morto. La loro sarà un'amicizia forte e vera. Questa è una delle cose che più mi è piaciuta.
Si può forse dire che l'autore vissuto per 11 anni nella Manhattan di quegli anni abbia attinto dai suoi ricordi visto che alcuni eventi sono realmente accaduti.
Non è stata facile questa lettura. Eppure leggerlo mi ha aperto gli occhi su molti temi spinosi.
April 7, 2019
I’ve never been to New York. But I’ve read this book, and that’s damn well the next best thing.
January 19, 2020
There’s a scene early on in this punishingly long book where co-protagonist Adeline goes to a party at Bret Easton Ellis’ house, and gives Bret Easton Ellis a critique of his work - namely the moralistic nature of his fiction and in particular his treatment of sex and drugs.
Well, the thing is Jarr- sorry, ADELINE... the thing is that Bret’s use of sex and drugs as elements within a broader morality play give his novels a sense of purpose and propulsion, even at their most tangential. You go along with wherever the exploits of Patrick Batemen or Victor Ward take you because you trust that these fragments, when taken as a whole, will be intellectually, spiritually or at least entertainingly nourishing.
Lose that, and all you’ve got is 400 interminable pages of dull, vacuous characters going to parties, or talking about parties they aren’t going to go to and meeting some people and doing drugs and falling out with those people and making up and going to a party and then going to another party and then meeting some more people and then doing drugs and then going to a party and then meeting the first set of people and getting invited to a party and talking about how you’re not going to the party but then you go the party anyway and do drugs and fall out with some other people that you didn’t meet at the party you didn’t go to and then you go to a party and it goes on and on and on for 400 pages, pointlessly.
But then, maybe that’s your point.
Except it’s NOT your point is it because then at the end you treat us to a three page dump of all the things the book we’ve just read was supposed to be about, but wasn’t because if it was you wouldn’t have had to tell us about it, you could have just threaded through the story. You know, like a novel?
Urgh. So frustrating. I’ve given this two stars rather than one, mostly because I read ‘I Hate the Internet’ only a few months ago and I’m still running on residual good will from that one.
But Jesus, dude, this blows.
Well, the thing is Jarr- sorry, ADELINE... the thing is that Bret’s use of sex and drugs as elements within a broader morality play give his novels a sense of purpose and propulsion, even at their most tangential. You go along with wherever the exploits of Patrick Batemen or Victor Ward take you because you trust that these fragments, when taken as a whole, will be intellectually, spiritually or at least entertainingly nourishing.
Lose that, and all you’ve got is 400 interminable pages of dull, vacuous characters going to parties, or talking about parties they aren’t going to go to and meeting some people and doing drugs and falling out with those people and making up and going to a party and then going to another party and then meeting some more people and then doing drugs and then going to a party and then meeting the first set of people and getting invited to a party and talking about how you’re not going to the party but then you go the party anyway and do drugs and fall out with some other people that you didn’t meet at the party you didn’t go to and then you go to a party and it goes on and on and on for 400 pages, pointlessly.
But then, maybe that’s your point.
Except it’s NOT your point is it because then at the end you treat us to a three page dump of all the things the book we’ve just read was supposed to be about, but wasn’t because if it was you wouldn’t have had to tell us about it, you could have just threaded through the story. You know, like a novel?
Urgh. So frustrating. I’ve given this two stars rather than one, mostly because I read ‘I Hate the Internet’ only a few months ago and I’m still running on residual good will from that one.
But Jesus, dude, this blows.
April 4, 2018
This was 31 flavors of nope for me*. Nope. Nooooooope. So much nope. I wanted to like this book. It had hope. It suggested heart and depth and pathos. I thought it would be in the same vein as "Christodora" (Tim Murphy) or "A Little Life" (Hanya Yanagihara). And when it proved it wasn't--the characters weren't even remotely sympathetic--I thought maybe the lack of sympathy was the point, a la Bret Easton Ellis (who himself is referenced multiple times in this book, take that how you will.) But no. The only reason I'm not giving this book one star is because there was something about it that made me want to continue reading, if only to find out if the characters redeem themselves somehow, or they suffer an appropriate and well-deserved demise. That might have just been my optimism, but I'll give Kobek the benefit of the doubt on this one, which might be generous, given he full-on plagarizes a Fiona Apple lyric about 1/3 in. (I looked it up. It doesn't seem to be a common phrase that she herself referenced, she seems to be the originator, and he took the whole damn thing.)
*And if you thought that sentence was obnoxiously affected and twee, then you'll hate this book. Run away.
*And if you thought that sentence was obnoxiously affected and twee, then you'll hate this book. Run away.
July 27, 2017
It's the 1980s and Adeline is an art student at Parsons in New York City. She comes across a young man who has fled Wisconsin thinking the Big Apple is a better fit for him. Adeline and this man she calls Baby strike up a friendship and together enjoy the New York nightlife scene. Baby is soon caught up in being a Club Kid and all that comes with it, including lots of drugs and lots of sex. But as the years pass, Adeline and Baby's friendship is put to the test.
The author truly has a unique writing style which might appeal to some but turn off others. I enjoyed the first 100 or so pages getting to know Adeline and Baby but the middle half of the book turned into a chore to read. I thought the story dragged on a little too much during these parts. The last 100 pages did pick up and I was interested again in the characters and their story lines.
The Club Kid scene of the 1980s and 1990s is thoroughly explored in this book so I recommend this book to anyone that is interested in that subject.
I received a free copy of this book Viking but was under no obligation to post a review. All views expressed are my honest opinions.
The author truly has a unique writing style which might appeal to some but turn off others. I enjoyed the first 100 or so pages getting to know Adeline and Baby but the middle half of the book turned into a chore to read. I thought the story dragged on a little too much during these parts. The last 100 pages did pick up and I was interested again in the characters and their story lines.
The Club Kid scene of the 1980s and 1990s is thoroughly explored in this book so I recommend this book to anyone that is interested in that subject.
I received a free copy of this book Viking but was under no obligation to post a review. All views expressed are my honest opinions.
October 18, 2017
So where Atta was perfectly weighted and affecting and IHTI was short enough to get away with Adeline's voice and the perfectly cutting remarks on society, TFWBL felt like Mr Kobek was stroking his slong in the mirror whilst admiring his own pectorals.
Adeline just got irritating.
It was good, it was fine, it was no more than good and fine.
3.699
Adeline just got irritating.
It was good, it was fine, it was no more than good and fine.
3.699
November 4, 2018
Amazing recreation of NYC as punk was fading out and the rise a fall of the clubs and club kids. Plugs you right into the smells, sounds and illegal substances of the time. The two leads, Baby and Adeline, are brilliant characters, in the thick of everything, but mostly as spectators, wittily commenting on it all.
December 29, 2018
DNF. This kitschy story about a couple of kids in 80s NYC might be interesting to the teen hipster reader. The characters are pretty vacant. One of them speaks in an annoying, affected manner that isn’t charming or clever. I wish she’d go away, but then there’d be no book.
A better book on this era would be the recently published memoir The Mudd Club by Richard Boch.
A better book on this era would be the recently published memoir The Mudd Club by Richard Boch.
September 3, 2017
' ...you market yourselves as if reading were an ennobling act of high culture or a passing amusement. When it is neither. You have debased the rush and throb and gob of it.'
The rush, throb, gob of this novel. I ask for nothing less.
The rush, throb, gob of this novel. I ask for nothing less.
October 22, 2017
The Future Won’t Be Long is a self-aware version of 80s and 90s New York novels that follows two friends over ten years of saving each other and striving for something resembling success in a disillusioned America. Baby is a gay guy fresh in New York from Wisconsin, where he meets Adeline, a rich kid art student with space for him to crash. They end up best friends and navigate a world filled with friends, disappointment, drugs, art, and East Village gentrification as America moves from the late eighties into the nineties.
The novel is fuelled by references to Warhol, Wojnarowicz, and Basquiat, Bret Easton Ellis, The Great Gatsby and Marvel vs DC. Though clearly similar to books by Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney, by including them as minor characters and taking a modern perspective on the period (the narratorial voice, which alternates between Baby and Adeline, makes mention of 9/11) Kobek makes The Future Won’t Be Long feel like a novel of that period and a comment upon them. The characters engage with politics on race, gender, and sexuality, using the twenty years distance between the end of the novel and the modern day to give space for reflection. The main characters are flawed and their friendship serves as a reminder that books can be centred around a friendship and its ups and downs whilst engaging with the culture surrounding them.
At times it does feel a little too clearly another New York epic about art, drugs, and friendship, but it makes a good companion to other books of the year like Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City (for the art and AIDS background) and has an enjoyable self-awareness about the popularity of the straight white American male author even in the alternative culture of the 90s. The narrative style is fast-paced and fairly jumpy, likely to appeal to people who like books by the authors referenced within the narrative like Easton Ellis. Sometimes almost metafictional, Kobek combines 80s and 90s gay New York life, the literary world of that time, comic books as art (including being female in that world), and general American life and disillusionment to create an enjoyable and interesting novel about a period there seemed to be too many books about already.
The novel is fuelled by references to Warhol, Wojnarowicz, and Basquiat, Bret Easton Ellis, The Great Gatsby and Marvel vs DC. Though clearly similar to books by Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney, by including them as minor characters and taking a modern perspective on the period (the narratorial voice, which alternates between Baby and Adeline, makes mention of 9/11) Kobek makes The Future Won’t Be Long feel like a novel of that period and a comment upon them. The characters engage with politics on race, gender, and sexuality, using the twenty years distance between the end of the novel and the modern day to give space for reflection. The main characters are flawed and their friendship serves as a reminder that books can be centred around a friendship and its ups and downs whilst engaging with the culture surrounding them.
At times it does feel a little too clearly another New York epic about art, drugs, and friendship, but it makes a good companion to other books of the year like Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City (for the art and AIDS background) and has an enjoyable self-awareness about the popularity of the straight white American male author even in the alternative culture of the 90s. The narrative style is fast-paced and fairly jumpy, likely to appeal to people who like books by the authors referenced within the narrative like Easton Ellis. Sometimes almost metafictional, Kobek combines 80s and 90s gay New York life, the literary world of that time, comic books as art (including being female in that world), and general American life and disillusionment to create an enjoyable and interesting novel about a period there seemed to be too many books about already.
October 29, 2017
The star of the book is New York City and its gritty, sprawling, drugged-out, insane pop culture between 1986 and 1996. Kobek charts the changes in the city in that 10 years through the eyes of two of its incoming residents, Baby, a young, gay former farmhand from Wisconsin, and Adeline, a wealthy student from LA.
I really enjoyed this book – Kobek's New York is the dark underbelly I fantasised about as a teenager listening to Lou Reed albums, though no doubt if I'd ever actually managed to get there I would have been murdered on principal at the airport, having about as much nous as a day-old kitten.
The novel opens with Baby coming to New York after the death of his parents, hoping to stay with an acquaintance from high school, which plan falls apart when he is robbed at the junkie-infested squat his friend lives in, and he latches gratefully on to Adeline instead. The stories of the two protagonists aren't by themselves very compelling – there's too much luck and coincidence in their lives, which removes any tension, and they're just a bit too Art Student to connect with, pontificating at affected length on the meaning and direction of everything from the movies they watch to the comics they read, whilst the life of the city rolls on oblivious.
But Baby and Adeline are just our guides to the main feature, the club land of the city and the disparate junkies who thrive in it. Every aspect of the confusing, technicolour lives of NYC's inhabitants is touched on - sex, drugs, bands, books, artists, hedonism, chaos, privilege, poverty, the club scene, satanic pot dealers, university, gay culture, the tragedy of AIDS, are all laid bare and explored, along with many, often drug-and-psychosis-fuelled, (real-life) murders.
Although the book is firmly in fictional novel territory, many of the events and people in it are real, and Googling them throws up any number of fascinating news stories, Wiki articles, conspiracy theories and odd little ancient forum threads. Kobek puts all of these together in a gonzo-journalistic mix that makes a strange and wonderful moment-in-time history book.
I received a review copy of this book from the publisher
I really enjoyed this book – Kobek's New York is the dark underbelly I fantasised about as a teenager listening to Lou Reed albums, though no doubt if I'd ever actually managed to get there I would have been murdered on principal at the airport, having about as much nous as a day-old kitten.
The novel opens with Baby coming to New York after the death of his parents, hoping to stay with an acquaintance from high school, which plan falls apart when he is robbed at the junkie-infested squat his friend lives in, and he latches gratefully on to Adeline instead. The stories of the two protagonists aren't by themselves very compelling – there's too much luck and coincidence in their lives, which removes any tension, and they're just a bit too Art Student to connect with, pontificating at affected length on the meaning and direction of everything from the movies they watch to the comics they read, whilst the life of the city rolls on oblivious.
But Baby and Adeline are just our guides to the main feature, the club land of the city and the disparate junkies who thrive in it. Every aspect of the confusing, technicolour lives of NYC's inhabitants is touched on - sex, drugs, bands, books, artists, hedonism, chaos, privilege, poverty, the club scene, satanic pot dealers, university, gay culture, the tragedy of AIDS, are all laid bare and explored, along with many, often drug-and-psychosis-fuelled, (real-life) murders.
Although the book is firmly in fictional novel territory, many of the events and people in it are real, and Googling them throws up any number of fascinating news stories, Wiki articles, conspiracy theories and odd little ancient forum threads. Kobek puts all of these together in a gonzo-journalistic mix that makes a strange and wonderful moment-in-time history book.
I received a review copy of this book from the publisher
August 31, 2020
"Oggi è già domani" è un libro di Jarett Kobek edito dalla Fazi Editore. E' ambientato a Manhattan nel periodo dal 1986 fino al 1996 e può essere considerato il prequel del primo libro scritto da Kobek, ovvero "Io odio Internet". I protagonisti sono gli stessi del primo libro, ovvero Baby e Adeline vent'anni prima delle vicende di "Io odio Internet".
Adeline è una studentessa d'arte e cambia la sua vita fuggendo da un fidanzato che non ama. Sua madre è vedova e molto benestante quindi Adeline riesce ad andare avanti senza problemi economici.
Baby è un ragazzo omosessuale orfano che vuole fuggire dal proprio passato e si trasferisce dal Wisconsin a New York. Vuole cancellare la sua vita di prima e per questo motivo non dice nemmeno il suo nome ma si inventa un soprannome.
Questi due personaggi tanto diversi ma anche tanto simili si incontrano e fra di loro nasce una forte amicizia.
Questo libro è stata una bella lettura ma, oltre alle cose che ho apprezzato ci sono delle cose che non mi sono piaciute secondo il miei gusti. Il libro è ricco di speranza, i due protagonisti hanno dei sogni che vogliono realizzare e la parte interessante riguarda le relazioni tra persone che sono capaci di cambiare le vite e, a volte a salvarle.
Quello che non mi è piaciuto è lo stile della scrittura, molto colloquiale ma, allo stesso tempo, anche spesso volgare e un po' troppo esplicito. Quest'aspetto non mi è piaciuto per mio gusto personale perché spesso ha reso la lettura un po' fastidiosa. La scelta di uno stile del genere è giusta perché le vicende si svolgono in una New York ricca di tossici, festaioli, ubriachi, stupratori e tantissima cocaina e minaccia dell'AIDS. Non potevo certo aspettarmi un tipo di linguaggio diverso o uno stile di scrittura più elegante quindi apprezzo questa scelta dello scrittore per rimanere coerente nella narrazione seppur secondo il mio gusto personale, non mi piace.
"Oggi è già domani" è un romanzo frizzante, moderno e malinconico e lo consiglio soprattutto a coloro che hanno vissuto a pieno quel periodo ma anche a chi vuole conoscerlo meglio.
Adeline è una studentessa d'arte e cambia la sua vita fuggendo da un fidanzato che non ama. Sua madre è vedova e molto benestante quindi Adeline riesce ad andare avanti senza problemi economici.
Baby è un ragazzo omosessuale orfano che vuole fuggire dal proprio passato e si trasferisce dal Wisconsin a New York. Vuole cancellare la sua vita di prima e per questo motivo non dice nemmeno il suo nome ma si inventa un soprannome.
Questi due personaggi tanto diversi ma anche tanto simili si incontrano e fra di loro nasce una forte amicizia.
Questo libro è stata una bella lettura ma, oltre alle cose che ho apprezzato ci sono delle cose che non mi sono piaciute secondo il miei gusti. Il libro è ricco di speranza, i due protagonisti hanno dei sogni che vogliono realizzare e la parte interessante riguarda le relazioni tra persone che sono capaci di cambiare le vite e, a volte a salvarle.
Quello che non mi è piaciuto è lo stile della scrittura, molto colloquiale ma, allo stesso tempo, anche spesso volgare e un po' troppo esplicito. Quest'aspetto non mi è piaciuto per mio gusto personale perché spesso ha reso la lettura un po' fastidiosa. La scelta di uno stile del genere è giusta perché le vicende si svolgono in una New York ricca di tossici, festaioli, ubriachi, stupratori e tantissima cocaina e minaccia dell'AIDS. Non potevo certo aspettarmi un tipo di linguaggio diverso o uno stile di scrittura più elegante quindi apprezzo questa scelta dello scrittore per rimanere coerente nella narrazione seppur secondo il mio gusto personale, non mi piace.
"Oggi è già domani" è un romanzo frizzante, moderno e malinconico e lo consiglio soprattutto a coloro che hanno vissuto a pieno quel periodo ma anche a chi vuole conoscerlo meglio.
Read
April 29, 2020Like a lot of young Midwest-borns, I long felt a visceral attraction to the hollowed-out New York of the '70s and '80s. Whether it was late-night VHS viewings of Midnight Cowboy or Taxi Driver, or later discoveries of Liquid Liquid, No New York, and Julian Schnabel, it seemed an enchanted universe, where a young man with not much money but a lot of ego about his own cleverness could do just fine.
Like all utopias, it existed just beyond the point of attainability, Giuliani'd into nothing.
Jarett Kobek wasn't there, and yet he was confident enough to make it the subject of his first novel after the landmark I Hate the Internet – that makes this a work of (gasp) historical fiction. And yet it's good. Through his characters, he gripes about the trust-fund kids, gentrification, and David Foster Wallace (yet again), and he gives some props to Bret Easton Ellis in the process (making me think that every writer since the '80s is either Team Wallace or Team Ellis). The Michael Alig case plays a role – as featured in the delightfully nihilistic film Party Monster – and I learn that Paul Auster's son was the one who robbed Angel Melendez's corpse (which puts Mme. Hustvedt's What I Loved in a whole new light). Unlike I Hate the Internet, I didn't feel like I was gleefully pouring a jug of Premium Unleaded on the campfire, but I enjoyed the novel's unfoldings over the years, as New York became closer and closer to the New York of now.
Like all utopias, it existed just beyond the point of attainability, Giuliani'd into nothing.
Jarett Kobek wasn't there, and yet he was confident enough to make it the subject of his first novel after the landmark I Hate the Internet – that makes this a work of (gasp) historical fiction. And yet it's good. Through his characters, he gripes about the trust-fund kids, gentrification, and David Foster Wallace (yet again), and he gives some props to Bret Easton Ellis in the process (making me think that every writer since the '80s is either Team Wallace or Team Ellis). The Michael Alig case plays a role – as featured in the delightfully nihilistic film Party Monster – and I learn that Paul Auster's son was the one who robbed Angel Melendez's corpse (which puts Mme. Hustvedt's What I Loved in a whole new light). Unlike I Hate the Internet, I didn't feel like I was gleefully pouring a jug of Premium Unleaded on the campfire, but I enjoyed the novel's unfoldings over the years, as New York became closer and closer to the New York of now.
dnf
November 4, 2021I really wanted to like this...Kobek has written two of the best books of the last decade in my opinion. I made one attempt at this a couple of years back and put it down at 50 pages - this time I got to 100 before giving up so, progress?
I don't think Kobek is a particularly good conventional writer - the moments where he reaches for profundity almost inevitably fall flat, and rarely in a way that reflects on the failings of his characters. From both I Hate the Internet and Only Americans Burn In Hell, the places where his writing resonates most with me are where he steps directly into view and speaks to me directly. OABIH in particular eschews the narrative form almost entirely, and Kobek goes to great lengths to point out where his weaknesses as a writer lie - which only makes those weaknesses more obvious here.
By comparison, this read as though he was trying to create the great American novel (a la Bret Easton Ellis or Jonathan Franzen), but most of the chapters feel so empty of content or depth that they fail to reach any such heights. I rarely got through more than a few pages before my mind started to wander.
Kobek has openly talked about how this book failed to find an audience, and it's easy to see why after these first 100 pages. Maybe one day when the rest of my pile is depleted I'll come back to this one. Till then - avoid.
I don't think Kobek is a particularly good conventional writer - the moments where he reaches for profundity almost inevitably fall flat, and rarely in a way that reflects on the failings of his characters. From both I Hate the Internet and Only Americans Burn In Hell, the places where his writing resonates most with me are where he steps directly into view and speaks to me directly. OABIH in particular eschews the narrative form almost entirely, and Kobek goes to great lengths to point out where his weaknesses as a writer lie - which only makes those weaknesses more obvious here.
By comparison, this read as though he was trying to create the great American novel (a la Bret Easton Ellis or Jonathan Franzen), but most of the chapters feel so empty of content or depth that they fail to reach any such heights. I rarely got through more than a few pages before my mind started to wander.
Kobek has openly talked about how this book failed to find an audience, and it's easy to see why after these first 100 pages. Maybe one day when the rest of my pile is depleted I'll come back to this one. Till then - avoid.
January 2, 2023
Roman difficile à classer dans un genre particulier. Les chapitres alternent l'histoire du point de vue d’une jeune femme, Adeline et d’un jeune homme, Baby, à partir de leur rencontre à New York en 1986.
On se retrouve plongé dans le monde de la nuit, des punks, des clubbers, des drag-queens, celle des marginaux de tous bords, drogués avec tout ce qu’ils peuvent se procurer et avec le Sida !
Ils racontent 10 ans de leur vie, de la vie de leur quartier, des changements intervenus dans la ville ainsi que leur propre évolution !
Le roman se déroule comme un film avec des gros plans sur des personnes et des événements réels, une véritable plongée en apnée dans le milieu homosexuel, fêtard et drogué, quasiment à l’apogée de son autodestruction !
La lecture ne fut pas un long fleuve tranquille, j’avais leur âge à cette époque et le Sida faisait des ravages parmi mes connaissances et amis alors que c’est un sujet pratiquement pas abordé dans ce roman, étrangement d’ailleurs car le milieu dans lequel nous plonge l’auteur était celui directement impliqué !
Ce pavé est un bon témoignage sur le monde interlope du New York de fin de siècle !
#Lefuturnetarderaplus #NetGalleyFrance #rentreelitteraire2022
On se retrouve plongé dans le monde de la nuit, des punks, des clubbers, des drag-queens, celle des marginaux de tous bords, drogués avec tout ce qu’ils peuvent se procurer et avec le Sida !
Ils racontent 10 ans de leur vie, de la vie de leur quartier, des changements intervenus dans la ville ainsi que leur propre évolution !
Le roman se déroule comme un film avec des gros plans sur des personnes et des événements réels, une véritable plongée en apnée dans le milieu homosexuel, fêtard et drogué, quasiment à l’apogée de son autodestruction !
La lecture ne fut pas un long fleuve tranquille, j’avais leur âge à cette époque et le Sida faisait des ravages parmi mes connaissances et amis alors que c’est un sujet pratiquement pas abordé dans ce roman, étrangement d’ailleurs car le milieu dans lequel nous plonge l’auteur était celui directement impliqué !
Ce pavé est un bon témoignage sur le monde interlope du New York de fin de siècle !
#Lefuturnetarderaplus #NetGalleyFrance #rentreelitteraire2022
January 7, 2018
"The story of the Holocaust was one of bad governance...Bureaucracy is the only thing that saves us from ourselves! Americans can't see a difference between the government and the state. The government is comprised of the corrupt scum who rule you. The state is the bureaucratic functionary that protects you until it is corrupted by the government. Without a well-functioning state, our rights are bought and sold with as much ease as a new computer. And these rights can be taken away with as little effort, particularly if the people are bewildered away from self-protection."
"I considered the things that fiction never addresses. Like the way that culture bubbles up from below...Like the way in which fluorescent lights have poisoned the modern experience. Like the way in which no specific action by any individual person or group of persons achieves anything and yet somehow life continues on apace...Like the way in which the only hope for the future is that this education will render each member of the species subject to stunting neuroses that cripple our ability to hurt each other..."
"I considered the things that fiction never addresses. Like the way that culture bubbles up from below...Like the way in which fluorescent lights have poisoned the modern experience. Like the way in which no specific action by any individual person or group of persons achieves anything and yet somehow life continues on apace...Like the way in which the only hope for the future is that this education will render each member of the species subject to stunting neuroses that cripple our ability to hurt each other..."
January 15, 2018
A love affair with New York expressed through the invented and turbulent trajectories of two characters, Adeline and Baby. Kobek's past readers will be familiar with these names from I Hate the Internet, but while there are occasional similarities and tonal throwbacks to that book, this novel feels fresh and new.
This novel is genuinely felt in its connection to the city through its violent and suppressed transformations and in its often-forgotten residents, the weird, the queer, and the underbelly; its narrative gives Kobek a chance to devote time and thought to the many people who survived in New York City in a way that no other place in America could then sustain. I recalled Olivia Laing's The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone while reading this, especially since both books demonstrate a sincere connection to the city's history. Where Laing was lonely and distant, a traveler enveloped in artistic nostalgia, Kobek fashions his fiction as a lived experience, an intimate and disgusted and mournful memory of what has been and continues to survive. The fundamental drive of the novel, the phrase that draws it together and propels its characters onward, is a simple one, frequently and always meaningfully repeated by Adeline and Baby too: "Can't repeat the past? Of course you can."
It was long, but it was powerful. A good novel, more traditional that those of Kobek's past. Definitely worth the time. I know that I devoured it.
This novel is genuinely felt in its connection to the city through its violent and suppressed transformations and in its often-forgotten residents, the weird, the queer, and the underbelly; its narrative gives Kobek a chance to devote time and thought to the many people who survived in New York City in a way that no other place in America could then sustain. I recalled Olivia Laing's The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone while reading this, especially since both books demonstrate a sincere connection to the city's history. Where Laing was lonely and distant, a traveler enveloped in artistic nostalgia, Kobek fashions his fiction as a lived experience, an intimate and disgusted and mournful memory of what has been and continues to survive. The fundamental drive of the novel, the phrase that draws it together and propels its characters onward, is a simple one, frequently and always meaningfully repeated by Adeline and Baby too: "Can't repeat the past? Of course you can."
It was long, but it was powerful. A good novel, more traditional that those of Kobek's past. Definitely worth the time. I know that I devoured it.
August 24, 2017
There's some books you never want to end and others where you just want to make it to the end. This is the later. Although I enjoyed Baby and Adeline as characters very much, their story felt as long as the decades featured in the novel. Reminded me of City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg in that it tried to cram in too much history and in this case some long winded mental narratives from Baby that I could have lived without! What's best about The Future Won't Be Long is that the characters rub elbows with some of the craziest famous folks to live in the city. Though it's unbelievable that they ran into everyone from Bret Easton Ellis to Michael Alig, these real life characters represent the popular (or unpopular) culture that provides a rich backdrop for Baby and Adeline's lives. Maybe I wanted to get to the end of the book to see how their lives turned out. In any case, I was happy to move on to my next story.
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