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Wallop: A Novel
The last time Lauren had gone to the Psychic Institute, she paid sixty bucks and was told she was a reincarnated mermaid from another planet. How stupid would a hitchhiking, pool-shooting landscaper have to be to impregnate a former alien mermaid? How idiotic would he have to be to sleep in cornfields, hitchhike with white supremacists, and consume a pillowcase full of mushrooms just to figure it out? Wallop is a budget crust-punk epic, an oogle ode set in the house parties and open roads of wasteland America, a manifesto for the crusty dirt bag who’s just trying to get something, anything, back on track. // “For anyone who’s ever wondered what it’s like to hitchhike through Kansas, sleep in a cornfield, or join the underground Missouri punk scene, Wallop is a thrilling read. Self-critical while never self-indulgent, Perkins has crafted a smart and refreshing twist on a familiar genre. Through witty prose and wry humor, he achieves a delicate balance of nihilism and hope, resulting in an ultimately moving perspective of one man struggling to find meaning in contemporary life.” - ISA MAZZEI, author of Camgirl
124 pages, Paperback
Published May 20, 2020
50 people want to read
About the author
Nathaniel Kennon Perkins
8 books22 followersNathaniel Kennon Perkins lives in Mexico City. He is the author of three books. His work has appeared widely in print and online.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 21, 2020
This book was the fucking shit!
August 2, 2020
Wallop by Nathaniel Kennon Perkins. Oh damn. This is a good one. There’s so much to love here. Part travelogue, part internal monologue, the novel opens to find our narrator in the midst of a personal crisis - his girlfriend is pregnant and neither of them are fit to be parents. She says she’ll get an abortion as she rails cocaine off their coffee table, but not until the narrator returns from a trip to Kansas City, Missouri. Jealous and untrusting, our narrator sticks his thumb out and hitchhikes his way through a multi-day bender alongside friends so close their family. The writing is always direct, unabashedly intimate, and at times exceedingly clever, and the work comes across as cohesive, thorough, and polished. This work is fearless. Tension permeates the whole work and I was thrilled with the conclusion. This is easily one of the best books I’ve read this year. Very recommended.
November 10, 2020
Nathaniel Kennon Perkins returns as the punk rock cowboy that America so desperately needs right now. With quite a Wallop Mr. Perkins picks up from where he left off with Cactus and The Way Cities Feel To Us Now, traipsing drunk and gacked across the new frontier of the New Wave Western. Like the traditional western, a frontiersman is isolated and trapped in his harsh environment and must endure his circumstances, but unlike the traditional western he endures not by wrangling and strangling his environment through manifest destiny, he endures by simply accepting the isolation through a Taoist-like natural flow with the harsh environment.
January 9, 2021
A short-lived, but highly detailed travel story full of crust and dirt and sweat. Vicariously tagging along for the ride is special enough, let alone the adventures that are told. Touching contemporary love story and how adversity and love work like a saw, the modern life, a block of wood. First read of Perkins, and surely not the last.
July 7, 2020
Man... I've been wanting to read a book just like this for so long. This felt comfortable and familiar and so goddamn real. The writing is clean and clear. The narrative moves like a hitchhiked journey––moves when it's moving, slows to contemplation when it needs to. There isn't a touch of insincerity or artificiality with these characters. It's fiction, but it might be nonfiction. I don't need to know or care. Because either way, this book fucking rocks. I'm gonna go read it again tonight. Thank you, NKP, for writing this wonderful, utterly human book.
November 8, 2020
Wallop is a concise easily digestible book that you don't want to put down. If you grew up reading zines from the US then this books feels like the grown up version of those. Interesting story of someone who is living an adventurous punk life, with all its flaws and contradictions. Well written, with wit and insight. Beautifully designed. Worth checking out this "young" author.
March 4, 2021
as someone from a dry state, this book made me feel hungover and i absolutely loved that. bloody incredible stuff in here. amazing book.
January 24, 2023
3.5, honestly wish it was a bit longer!
Having grown up all over the Denver/Boulder metro area it was fun to catch a handful of minor references to places, and coming up in the punk/hardcore scene I knew a ton of people exactly like those depicted in the novel. That's where wishing it was longer comes into play- I often wonder about some of the people I knew from going to DIY house shows, or slipped around on beer-soaked barroom floors while someone screamed into a microphone at the front of the room and where they might be these days, even if they were in the throes of making shitty life decisions like getting their girlfriends pregnant and absconding to KC. I'd like to think those people figured some shit out, and I'd have loved to see the main character of this book make that journey, but maybe I'm wanting something from the book that Mr. Perkins didn't want it to be about. We probably know some of the same people, and maybe they're still out there fucking up and making mistakes and getting SO CLOSE to that blast of insight needed to push them into being better people and showing up but just not getting it- just like this book depicts.
Even still I had a fun time with it, and as I said before it reminded me of a lot of the people and places and adventures I spent my 20's with and sorely miss. I'm glad there's writers out there like Nathaniel and Adam Gnade and probably others I'm unaware of that are doing their part to document forgotten histories and places in a music scene and place that most people couldn't give two shits about.
Having grown up all over the Denver/Boulder metro area it was fun to catch a handful of minor references to places, and coming up in the punk/hardcore scene I knew a ton of people exactly like those depicted in the novel. That's where wishing it was longer comes into play- I often wonder about some of the people I knew from going to DIY house shows, or slipped around on beer-soaked barroom floors while someone screamed into a microphone at the front of the room and where they might be these days, even if they were in the throes of making shitty life decisions like getting their girlfriends pregnant and absconding to KC. I'd like to think those people figured some shit out, and I'd have loved to see the main character of this book make that journey, but maybe I'm wanting something from the book that Mr. Perkins didn't want it to be about. We probably know some of the same people, and maybe they're still out there fucking up and making mistakes and getting SO CLOSE to that blast of insight needed to push them into being better people and showing up but just not getting it- just like this book depicts.
Even still I had a fun time with it, and as I said before it reminded me of a lot of the people and places and adventures I spent my 20's with and sorely miss. I'm glad there's writers out there like Nathaniel and Adam Gnade and probably others I'm unaware of that are doing their part to document forgotten histories and places in a music scene and place that most people couldn't give two shits about.
May 3, 2023
4.5-stars rounded up to 5!
Independent Bookstore Day was this past weekend, and I finally decided to check one out in Boulder, specifically Trident. Real great place, and I highly recommend it.
While in, I scoured for self-published books or ones from indie publishers and came across this gem of a book.
At a nice, crisp 107-pages, Wallop delivers on its name. There's no action, but tons of character and motivations and travel and conversations. I never found it boring, and I appreciated how real it all felt. No one here is a saint or a villain, but they are who they are, and that's the way it is.
If you can find the time to get a bit grungy, I think you'll enjoy this short little read.
Independent Bookstore Day was this past weekend, and I finally decided to check one out in Boulder, specifically Trident. Real great place, and I highly recommend it.
While in, I scoured for self-published books or ones from indie publishers and came across this gem of a book.
At a nice, crisp 107-pages, Wallop delivers on its name. There's no action, but tons of character and motivations and travel and conversations. I never found it boring, and I appreciated how real it all felt. No one here is a saint or a villain, but they are who they are, and that's the way it is.
If you can find the time to get a bit grungy, I think you'll enjoy this short little read.
April 3, 2023
Better than Cactus, Perkins is developing as a writer and great to follow. Punks in the plains. Good stuff.
January 12, 2023
If you want to know what it feels like to be a young man making bad life choices in today's America, this is the book for you.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews