1978

by Daniel Jones

A new music was coming in from London. Johnny was Rotten a while longer, and the Sex Pistols were imploding on their ill-fated U.S. tour. Meanwhile, all the young punks in Toronto were ripping and bashing about like it was minutes to midnight. Teenage Head, The Viletones, and the Diodes provided the best three chords in town. Everything was falling apart... It was 1978.

Genres: Fiction

141 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Daniel Cameron Jones was born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1959, and lived in Toronto from 1977 until his tragic suicide in 1994. His books include a collection of poetry, The Brave Never Write Poetry (Coach House), a novel, Obsessions (Mercury), and a collection of short stories, The People One Knows (Mercury). A former contributing editor to WHAT!, Piranha, and Border/Lines, Jones also edited and, with his wife, Robyn Gillam, co-published Streetcar Editions.

Reviews

[Amanda]

the reissue has been published by Three O'Clock Press:
http://threeoclockpress.com/

[Nellalou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not really a review but a response to some of the themes in the book.

A bleak but honest portrayal of the non-straight-edge punks of that time and place. Grim.

Most everyone who didn't either become a political radical or a capitalist sell out was swallowed by their own nihilism one way or another. The author committed suicide. Some of those involved just became their parents, which is the same thing.

Really not many places to go in a world that pushed both repeats of The Brady Bunch and the cocaine fueled glam of Studio 54 at you repeatedly. Options were as banal then as they are now. Though now there's the glam of drones and the camaraderie of acceptable nationalistic torture narratives.

Those of us who identify as GenX watched as the resistance movements of the 60s crumbled in favor of genteel cultivation of a flower power version of the 1950s. The radicals moved on out to the suburbs to organized barbecues, encounter groups and PTA meetings. They remain oblivious.

Like I said, not really a review.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best punk novel ever. Hand's down. The guy was a writer. Yeah, with real talent like other real writers! I say "was" cuz he killed himself on Valentine's Day 1994.
This book, about being punk in Toronto in 1978, has all the truths of being punk at any age anywhere.
It's written very matter o' factly. The names of all the big punk bands in Toronto are splattered into the mix along with real people from that time. It has all the maladjusted freaks roaming the pages that any punk before Green Day made punk cool will remember. The sort of people that made you sleep with one eye open. Chaos. Self loathing. Self harm. The constant search to end bordom driving people to more desperate extremes.
The ending freaked the Hell out of me.
And then the best last line to a book ever!

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

"1978" is a punk novel. And as they say about the sixties, I think you really had to have been there to experience it. I was 11 in 1978 and I was also a punk. I'd bought my first single (The Stranglers "Five Minutes") but my punk experience was totally different from the one in this novel. Thankfully! I've no doubt that this stuff went on - and it's a fascinating read - but in many respects it reads like a novel that someone would have written from punk stereotypes. Interesting where the line between fact and fiction blurs - at what point does something new become something old, when does originality turn into familiarity. This is a solid read, not for the fainthearted, and I recommend it. But as to authenticity, just draw on your own experiences.

[Stephanie Sharkey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'll probably be in the minority on this, but this book bored me. It was hyped as this raw, electrifying novel about Toronto's early punk scene. I did like the fact that it was set in Toronto, on streets that I recognize, in bars and diners that I've been to and featuring bands I know and like.

The characters are caricatures who spend all their time screaming obscenities at each other and get drunk and stoned in such epic quantities that I felt drunk half the time I was reading the book. There is no plot, no character development, and the events that take place aren't that interesting. Punk was and is vibrant and exciting. 1978 is neither.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been some time since I last read Daniel Jones' 1978 - his last book, not published until 1988, nearly four years after his suicide in 1994 - and it is astounding - it is such a tightly-constructed and devastating portrait of Toronto's punk scene in the late seventies and captures the essence of that world in the lives of the outsiders who are "sharing" an apartment on Howland Ave in the Annex - I'd forgotten how raw and gritty a novel it is but also how beautifully Daniel wrote - it is a small tight perfect entree into a happening moment in Toronto's alternative music scene and it's no wonder that it is an underground classic!

[Cambria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was like a punch in the face!

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essential volume for those interested in the scene. In this case, written by one who "was there."

[Tim Waterfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent depiction what punk was really like.