What do you think?
Rate this book
Slouchers: The Novelization
Named One of Vulture's Top 5 Humor Books of the Year!
The novelization to the 1992 Gen X movie "Slouchers"
It is the early 1990s in Seattle ... and the MTV video for Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has just premiered the previous week. Lethargy is in the air. Grunge fashion is all the logy rage. Something is brewing beneath these moist, overcast Seattle skies. Twenty-two-year-old Willow Montgomery has freshly arrived in town, having just graduated from an elite liberal arts college back east. Willow soon befriends a motley crew of twenty-somethings who live in the parking lot next to the alternative record store where she works for $5 an hour, a store run by a cantankerous, irritable, grouchy older man (he's 29) named Skip. Willow wants to desperately capture the brilliance of her generation on her Fuji DS-100 digicam with 3-power zoom (10-byte, digital flash-memory card, first of its kind), and to have her documentary ultimately broadcast on MTV. What a dream! In the meantime, she's dating Toody, part-time bike messenger, part-time lead singer of the grunge band That's Your Problem. But there's a new man in town, "Mr. Straight," an important businessman who works downtown and who also has eyes for Willow, after having met her while buying a Best Of Aerosmith CD at Skip's store. Whom will Willow choose? The Grunger or the Straight? The man who digs this new music called "grunge" or the one who still listens to classic rock? Will she achieve any semblance of happiness? Will she continue to work a minimum McJob for the rest of her life, or can she somehow achieve her artistic goals, as lofty as they might be? Will the Lost Boys and Girls, as they call themselves, ever leave the parking lot to achieve their own dreams? Moreover, will the famous inventor of the hacky sack ever arrive at the parking lot in a stretch limousine like he's promised? Is it true that the world's most famous MTV VJ, Tabitha, is coming to Seattle to host the first Great MTV Grunge Off competition, to be filmed for live TV, for all the world to see?! It's 1992 in Seattle and the world is about to change forever. Or maybe not. It's all about the look ... it's all about the collective alienation ... it's all about the deep-seated, delicious apathy ... It's all about ... Slouchers .
The novelization to the 1992 Gen X movie "Slouchers"
It is the early 1990s in Seattle ... and the MTV video for Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has just premiered the previous week. Lethargy is in the air. Grunge fashion is all the logy rage. Something is brewing beneath these moist, overcast Seattle skies. Twenty-two-year-old Willow Montgomery has freshly arrived in town, having just graduated from an elite liberal arts college back east. Willow soon befriends a motley crew of twenty-somethings who live in the parking lot next to the alternative record store where she works for $5 an hour, a store run by a cantankerous, irritable, grouchy older man (he's 29) named Skip. Willow wants to desperately capture the brilliance of her generation on her Fuji DS-100 digicam with 3-power zoom (10-byte, digital flash-memory card, first of its kind), and to have her documentary ultimately broadcast on MTV. What a dream! In the meantime, she's dating Toody, part-time bike messenger, part-time lead singer of the grunge band That's Your Problem. But there's a new man in town, "Mr. Straight," an important businessman who works downtown and who also has eyes for Willow, after having met her while buying a Best Of Aerosmith CD at Skip's store. Whom will Willow choose? The Grunger or the Straight? The man who digs this new music called "grunge" or the one who still listens to classic rock? Will she achieve any semblance of happiness? Will she continue to work a minimum McJob for the rest of her life, or can she somehow achieve her artistic goals, as lofty as they might be? Will the Lost Boys and Girls, as they call themselves, ever leave the parking lot to achieve their own dreams? Moreover, will the famous inventor of the hacky sack ever arrive at the parking lot in a stretch limousine like he's promised? Is it true that the world's most famous MTV VJ, Tabitha, is coming to Seattle to host the first Great MTV Grunge Off competition, to be filmed for live TV, for all the world to see?! It's 1992 in Seattle and the world is about to change forever. Or maybe not. It's all about the look ... it's all about the collective alienation ... it's all about the deep-seated, delicious apathy ... It's all about ... Slouchers .
- GenresHumor
292 pages, Paperback
Published December 8, 2020
7 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 25, 2020
I was still in high school in New Mexico at the time, but we all know that Seattle in the early 1990s was the most magical, exciting place to be. This is the ethos of Slouchers, the new film-inspired comedy novel from Mike Sacks, who oreviously delighted with Stinker Lets Loose!, a send-up of 70s road movies, and Passable in Pink, his homage to John Hughes. Slouchers takes on films like Singles, Dazed and Confused, Slacker, Reality Bites and the early Kevin Smith films. It’s all about people in their early 20s (and also late 20s and also Kurt Loder) pitting grunge authenti city against yuppie Boomers in a short-lived, pre-internet era.
Willow is our hero. She’s moved to Seattle from “back east” and is making a documentary about her generation, embodied by the “Lost Boys,” a group of slackers and stoners. The crew includes: Toodie, her sometime boyfriend who is going to be the next Nirvana; Skip, her boss at a record store who brandishes weapons at people who buy commercial rock albums; Vicky, her best friend who is just kind of average looking but a slut, Wake and Bake (two guys, no explanation needed) and a host of others, including the requisite recently out gay characters whose parents are still coming to terms with what they should have realized anyway. Also, there’s “Mr. Straight,” who is a business man from out of town who is into “commerce” and would as clearly be played by Ben Stiller as Winona Ryder would be Willow. His purchase of the failing record store incites the plot.
Willow, by the way, has been in Seattle all of two weeks, but it was before the release of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, so her roots burrow deep. Her documentary’s goal are comically amporphous:
“But her documentary isn’t about her sex life. Who would be interested in that anyway? It’s really more about her friends and how they are changing the universe.”
Meanwhile her foil, Mr. Straight, is no better grounded. When asked to explain his line of work he answers: “Business,” says Mr. Straight. “Finance. Commerce.”
Everyone is earnest and right on ths surface. It sets up a showdown between grunge authenticity and corporate capitalism, all set to be exploited by MTV. We’re reminded with a laugh and poke in the ribs that any nostalgia we have from that era is nostalgia for something that was created and mass marketed by the same multinational conglomerates we worry about today.
But, don’t worry, there’s no semornizing, except for comic effective and there are multiple laughs per page. Another triumph for Mike Sacks. By the way, I think I read that Sacks didn’t love the 90s grunge era films or the aesthetic, and yet he’s built a following for his novel movie parodies in a totally 90s, DIY, indie way. That’s not the technical definition of irony that I learned studying theatre history back in those days, but it’s close enough for the Hollywood take.
Willow is our hero. She’s moved to Seattle from “back east” and is making a documentary about her generation, embodied by the “Lost Boys,” a group of slackers and stoners. The crew includes: Toodie, her sometime boyfriend who is going to be the next Nirvana; Skip, her boss at a record store who brandishes weapons at people who buy commercial rock albums; Vicky, her best friend who is just kind of average looking but a slut, Wake and Bake (two guys, no explanation needed) and a host of others, including the requisite recently out gay characters whose parents are still coming to terms with what they should have realized anyway. Also, there’s “Mr. Straight,” who is a business man from out of town who is into “commerce” and would as clearly be played by Ben Stiller as Winona Ryder would be Willow. His purchase of the failing record store incites the plot.
Willow, by the way, has been in Seattle all of two weeks, but it was before the release of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, so her roots burrow deep. Her documentary’s goal are comically amporphous:
“But her documentary isn’t about her sex life. Who would be interested in that anyway? It’s really more about her friends and how they are changing the universe.”
Meanwhile her foil, Mr. Straight, is no better grounded. When asked to explain his line of work he answers: “Business,” says Mr. Straight. “Finance. Commerce.”
Everyone is earnest and right on ths surface. It sets up a showdown between grunge authenticity and corporate capitalism, all set to be exploited by MTV. We’re reminded with a laugh and poke in the ribs that any nostalgia we have from that era is nostalgia for something that was created and mass marketed by the same multinational conglomerates we worry about today.
But, don’t worry, there’s no semornizing, except for comic effective and there are multiple laughs per page. Another triumph for Mike Sacks. By the way, I think I read that Sacks didn’t love the 90s grunge era films or the aesthetic, and yet he’s built a following for his novel movie parodies in a totally 90s, DIY, indie way. That’s not the technical definition of irony that I learned studying theatre history back in those days, but it’s close enough for the Hollywood take.
May 21, 2021
I came of age in the early 90s, probably definitely wanted to be like these characters, and - Wow! - what an indictment! I loved it! I laughed. I felt old & sad. But I’ll never stop wearing a hoodie and/or flannel shirt tied around my waist!
January 16, 2021
There before the book happened
By minutes, really. I'd like to tell you what I liked about this book, but I'm kinda busy. Doing nothing. Come back tomorrow?
By minutes, really. I'd like to tell you what I liked about this book, but I'm kinda busy. Doing nothing. Come back tomorrow?
July 15, 2021
Hands down one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews