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Psychomachia
Psychomachia reads like an NA meeting with Donna Tartt, Joan Didion, DBC Pierre, James Frey, Angela Carter, Reinaldo Arenas, Virginia Despentes and JT Leroy battling their collective consciousness. Literature like this is usually presented through the male gaze, hence the fashion and rock n roll literati naming Kirsty Allison London’s finest.
She’s hilarious – she’s f*cked up. Scarlet Flagg is so wasted, she doesn’t know if she killed the arch patriarch of rock n roll, Malachi Wright of Wright States International Touring after he raped her at a festival at 14. Scarlet is the kinda girl you wanna help, f*ck, and leave. But is she dangerous? Did she murder Malachi or was it her boyfriend, Iggy Papershoes, frontman of Heroshima? Or perhaps her drug-dealing father? Scarlet doesn't remember – she hardly remembers her own name.
This is brutal female drug-lit at its finest. The first novel of the real nineties, Scarlet is an unreliable narrator of epic fin-de-millennia proportions floating in a Shoreditch-warehouse haze. Her fast moving chronicle of the secret drug-filled, love starved, sex satiated-nightmare world of East End fashion, art and music afterparties is set in an era before MeToo, when stigmas meant keeping schtum, and getting in with the male-dominated in-crowd relied on copious amounts of class-As. Like Jean Genet in a prison cell, without camera phones, social media or mental health awareness, Scarlet searches for redemption in the pursuit of revenge through blurred lines in Ibiza, Paris, London and New York.
She’s hilarious – she’s f*cked up. Scarlet Flagg is so wasted, she doesn’t know if she killed the arch patriarch of rock n roll, Malachi Wright of Wright States International Touring after he raped her at a festival at 14. Scarlet is the kinda girl you wanna help, f*ck, and leave. But is she dangerous? Did she murder Malachi or was it her boyfriend, Iggy Papershoes, frontman of Heroshima? Or perhaps her drug-dealing father? Scarlet doesn't remember – she hardly remembers her own name.
This is brutal female drug-lit at its finest. The first novel of the real nineties, Scarlet is an unreliable narrator of epic fin-de-millennia proportions floating in a Shoreditch-warehouse haze. Her fast moving chronicle of the secret drug-filled, love starved, sex satiated-nightmare world of East End fashion, art and music afterparties is set in an era before MeToo, when stigmas meant keeping schtum, and getting in with the male-dominated in-crowd relied on copious amounts of class-As. Like Jean Genet in a prison cell, without camera phones, social media or mental health awareness, Scarlet searches for redemption in the pursuit of revenge through blurred lines in Ibiza, Paris, London and New York.
256 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2021
11 people are currently reading
443 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
September 10, 2021
This is a visceral journey through the unreliably narrated life and times of Scarlet Flagg... It's a genuinely good book, brutal in parts and funny in others (even brutally funny on occasion). There are oneiric qualities to the journey - making you doubt what's happening - either in your mind, or Scarlet's. Linguistically, for me, it walks an interesting line. There are hits and misses - some of it is couture Versace, some... even too gauche for Liberace. Even then, I get it, it makes sense. A reflection of the 'glory in excess' of the nineties, but anything that takes you out of the moment still jars, and lessens the impact...
A fabulous debut novel, I hope there is more to come.
A fabulous debut novel, I hope there is more to come.
September 30, 2023
WTF. Why?! That’s what you might ask yourself when you read some blurb about Scarlet barely in the world before she starts barreling towards hell in a drug filled hand basket. Why does she keep going? Why is she still trying to write and make in all that moral muck? All of the answers are there in Scarlet’s head and Allison gives them to those of us who have been looking too.
If you’ve lost yourself or someone to the ferocity of addiction and the constant pursuit of a life that’s built on hedonism and the beautiful art that comes from the whirlwind around that death drive then please, please pick this up. The twin sister to any of the greats in this genre and a ruthless look at the music scene.
Painful to read only because Allison turns away from nothing. A good and grimy look at an art scene, it could be any art scene, and all the ways it moves the world and the people wrapped up in it for better or worse.
That life eats you alive and the author gets how.
And hey guess what? THANKGOD it’s finally not a passenger seat version of this - you know one of those texts where the person seeks and seeks the horrible things that happen to them because of ennui or some fetishy need to get close to the vile. There’s always a little of that mixed into any hedonistic novel but this is a whole new voice. The narrator seems to me the kind of person who normally is only seen through the glazed eyes of some rich kid ‘Less than Zero’ style narrator all grown up. Things happen to her because she is a target of that mindset sure, but more often she’s behind the wheel. Things happen to her because that world is very factually depraved and yet she is pure belief - in the people she loves, hates, in what is being made, in getting up everyday and dressing up and making something for as long as you can. That is the difference. Look, yes it is another novel about someone choosing sensuality, art and a really hearty addiction but my god finally this feels different.
It has some of the most nauseating scenes I’ve ever read and yet you feel her burning up with that personality, the kind of fired up sense of self that moves that world, which she retains despite it all. She is the scene. By the end you’ll be dying to know what she could and will do about her place in it. Jesus rant nearly over sorry but really, really do read this. Huge TWs though. This is feminine experience made hard and sharp as diamond. If you go in unsuspecting then even the most iron stomached reader might have moments where your insides turn, and you want to close the book and your eyes and make the story stop in its tracks. But because it’s her story you won’t. The Game of Thrones writers room could have really used a lesson from Allison on how to show graphic scenes of assault without making it… weird idk.
So- This is for anyone who loves their city, their craft and their friends. It’s a text for people who feel some itch at the back of their neck when they see someone they know or themselves burning a little too brightly or a little too quickly already. Or if you’re a brand new adult, off to study art/music, or head to some new place with all those big dreams ready to puzzle out what might be down that road if you get to drive. Yup would generally recommended to anyone who enjoys things like ‘Less than Zero’ or ‘Fear and Loathing..’. But wanted something more. Phew 😮💨 shutting up now plz read pink book
If you’ve lost yourself or someone to the ferocity of addiction and the constant pursuit of a life that’s built on hedonism and the beautiful art that comes from the whirlwind around that death drive then please, please pick this up. The twin sister to any of the greats in this genre and a ruthless look at the music scene.
Painful to read only because Allison turns away from nothing. A good and grimy look at an art scene, it could be any art scene, and all the ways it moves the world and the people wrapped up in it for better or worse.
That life eats you alive and the author gets how.
And hey guess what? THANKGOD it’s finally not a passenger seat version of this - you know one of those texts where the person seeks and seeks the horrible things that happen to them because of ennui or some fetishy need to get close to the vile. There’s always a little of that mixed into any hedonistic novel but this is a whole new voice. The narrator seems to me the kind of person who normally is only seen through the glazed eyes of some rich kid ‘Less than Zero’ style narrator all grown up. Things happen to her because she is a target of that mindset sure, but more often she’s behind the wheel. Things happen to her because that world is very factually depraved and yet she is pure belief - in the people she loves, hates, in what is being made, in getting up everyday and dressing up and making something for as long as you can. That is the difference. Look, yes it is another novel about someone choosing sensuality, art and a really hearty addiction but my god finally this feels different.
It has some of the most nauseating scenes I’ve ever read and yet you feel her burning up with that personality, the kind of fired up sense of self that moves that world, which she retains despite it all. She is the scene. By the end you’ll be dying to know what she could and will do about her place in it. Jesus rant nearly over sorry but really, really do read this. Huge TWs though. This is feminine experience made hard and sharp as diamond. If you go in unsuspecting then even the most iron stomached reader might have moments where your insides turn, and you want to close the book and your eyes and make the story stop in its tracks. But because it’s her story you won’t. The Game of Thrones writers room could have really used a lesson from Allison on how to show graphic scenes of assault without making it… weird idk.
So- This is for anyone who loves their city, their craft and their friends. It’s a text for people who feel some itch at the back of their neck when they see someone they know or themselves burning a little too brightly or a little too quickly already. Or if you’re a brand new adult, off to study art/music, or head to some new place with all those big dreams ready to puzzle out what might be down that road if you get to drive. Yup would generally recommended to anyone who enjoys things like ‘Less than Zero’ or ‘Fear and Loathing..’. But wanted something more. Phew 😮💨 shutting up now plz read pink book
July 22, 2024
Kirsty Allison’s debut novel is captivating ,blending rawness, grit, humor, and an energetiyc narrative that I couldn’t put down. The 90s in all its glory and debauchery.
October 16, 2023
As it started off, I was captivated by the fast-paced writing style, so visual, an adrenaline rush.
Towards the end it got a bit tedious with her indefinitely wandering around in a drug-induced state.
However, it picked back up at the end to tie up all the disgusting knots and make Malachi scummier than we thought he could've sunk.
A weird, manky, poetic tale.
3.5 stars
Towards the end it got a bit tedious with her indefinitely wandering around in a drug-induced state.
However, it picked back up at the end to tie up all the disgusting knots and make Malachi scummier than we thought he could've sunk.
A weird, manky, poetic tale.
3.5 stars
August 26, 2023
3.5 stars *** holy fuck this book was dark and the ***SPOILER*** ending was absoloutely tragic. I loved the frenzied erratic way it was written and I truly feel like I now know what it’s like to be on 5 different drugs at all times. And also that I’ve lived a full life time in the 90s. I love Scarlett and all her contradictions, and despite their questionable relationship, think her and Iggy BELONGED TOGETHER and I’m so sad they didn’t go on to live out rock n roll retirement together, and sober. HOWEVER. this book could have been edgy and poetic without the author trying so hard - sometimes this took me out of the book which made it hard to get stuck in. So did all of the asterisk, I ended up skipping most of them.
February 18, 2024
This was good, but not great, which I think it had the potential to be.
The writing style was odd, a little pretentious at points. I felt it was trying to imitate Irvine Welsh rather than doing its own thing. Overuse of adjectives in parts made it a little tedious.
The story was great though, if a little hard to follow in parts.
Not sure I needed the “twist” at the end, seemed a little forced.
Still give it 3* for originality though!
The writing style was odd, a little pretentious at points. I felt it was trying to imitate Irvine Welsh rather than doing its own thing. Overuse of adjectives in parts made it a little tedious.
The story was great though, if a little hard to follow in parts.
Not sure I needed the “twist” at the end, seemed a little forced.
Still give it 3* for originality though!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 23, 2022
A carnival of the senses + moving, true account of how a woman feels when she is treated as a commodity. Written before #Metoo, bold, daring use of language.
Read
September 11, 2023Being born in 1994 means I can really only go off of what I’ve been told, but I feel Psychomachia speaks truthfully to what the 1990s music scene would’ve looked and felt like. It is a complete concoction of sound, colour, material and personality that create something of a wild sensual overload. Kirsty Allison really doesn’t whimper from going straight into the thick of it, and it comes across that she’s speaking from personal experience of living in this environment throughout the nineties.
Allison uses a unique humour through short and quick one liners that mark the end of particular passages of text. We will be given a background of a character, or an explanation of a scene, and the narrator will throw in a comedic analogy or opinion to tie everything together. I think sometimes the author can be quite heavy handed with these humorous moments and I’m afraid to say they did sometimes take away from the overall plot. Rather than adding emersion, they only feel like a distraction to the story. Using this method of comedy sparingly would’ve been more beneficial to the impact they have when first experienced.
Saying that, why would you want to be immersed in such a hedonistic experience? Every character that Scarlett (our protagonist) encounters has a character flaw that’s glaringly obviously to everyone but Scarlett herself. She’s young and naive and it’s frustrating but gripping to read what she’ll give up next. She is manipulated by everyone around her as she’s held at the bottom of the pyramid and power dynamics are always in favour of the men surrounding her. The track is set and we’re watching our protagonist sat on the front seat of the train as it barrels towards a brick wall.
It’s a welcomed change to see the grubby and gritty side of 1990s fame being told from the viewpoint of a woman.
A book that’s perfect for music fans, especially those with a keen interest in the punk/grunge scene of the 1990s. A dark and dirty novel that doesn’t hold back, no matter the uncomfortableness.
Allison uses a unique humour through short and quick one liners that mark the end of particular passages of text. We will be given a background of a character, or an explanation of a scene, and the narrator will throw in a comedic analogy or opinion to tie everything together. I think sometimes the author can be quite heavy handed with these humorous moments and I’m afraid to say they did sometimes take away from the overall plot. Rather than adding emersion, they only feel like a distraction to the story. Using this method of comedy sparingly would’ve been more beneficial to the impact they have when first experienced.
Saying that, why would you want to be immersed in such a hedonistic experience? Every character that Scarlett (our protagonist) encounters has a character flaw that’s glaringly obviously to everyone but Scarlett herself. She’s young and naive and it’s frustrating but gripping to read what she’ll give up next. She is manipulated by everyone around her as she’s held at the bottom of the pyramid and power dynamics are always in favour of the men surrounding her. The track is set and we’re watching our protagonist sat on the front seat of the train as it barrels towards a brick wall.
It’s a welcomed change to see the grubby and gritty side of 1990s fame being told from the viewpoint of a woman.
A book that’s perfect for music fans, especially those with a keen interest in the punk/grunge scene of the 1990s. A dark and dirty novel that doesn’t hold back, no matter the uncomfortableness.
October 20, 2021
The story of Scarlet Flagg who falls through the nineties fashion and music scene in a no holds barred tale of drugs, abuse and excess. By turns shocking, terrifying and even darkly funny in places, this is a book that takes hold of the reader's imagination and instills a craving to find out what's going to happen to Scarlet at all costs, no matter how terrible they fear it's likely to turn out to be due to the relentless narrative bombshells she is subject to.
It's addictive and you can't look away.
The hedonistic agitation of those days is painstakingly drawn with all its flaws and defects highlighted and yet Scarlet – our unreliable yet brutally honest narrator – is unable to escape or see what's as plain as a pikestaff to the reader. She is heading for a fall. The style – including tangential footnotes like a wandering train of thought which detail the endless deaths due to misadventure, malice and immoderation in rock and roll since its inception – is immediate and visceral, a total immersion tragedy which highlights the abhorrent truth: some people's response to encountering vulnerability will always be to exploit it.
Will leave you reeling and live in your mind forever after.
It's addictive and you can't look away.
The hedonistic agitation of those days is painstakingly drawn with all its flaws and defects highlighted and yet Scarlet – our unreliable yet brutally honest narrator – is unable to escape or see what's as plain as a pikestaff to the reader. She is heading for a fall. The style – including tangential footnotes like a wandering train of thought which detail the endless deaths due to misadventure, malice and immoderation in rock and roll since its inception – is immediate and visceral, a total immersion tragedy which highlights the abhorrent truth: some people's response to encountering vulnerability will always be to exploit it.
Will leave you reeling and live in your mind forever after.
March 15, 2025
This book illustrates a visceral, traumatising, raw journey.
The style of writing (although sometimes difficult to read/piece together at times)- vague and disjointed perfectly depicts the alcoholic drug filled, depressive and hazy state the characters experience, more so towards the end (you’ll see why).
It does not follow a linear structure of writing and for that reason I personally enjoyed the story as you are unable to predict what will happen next.
I had the pleasure of meeting Kirsty Allison where I work (before I’d finished the book), her aura and realness are injected into the story of psychomachia.
The style of writing (although sometimes difficult to read/piece together at times)- vague and disjointed perfectly depicts the alcoholic drug filled, depressive and hazy state the characters experience, more so towards the end (you’ll see why).
It does not follow a linear structure of writing and for that reason I personally enjoyed the story as you are unable to predict what will happen next.
I had the pleasure of meeting Kirsty Allison where I work (before I’d finished the book), her aura and realness are injected into the story of psychomachia.
August 11, 2023
I don't know what to make of this novel. It leaves me with a million different feelings. I feel battered. I feel drugged. I feel raped. I feel music coursing through my veins. I feel like I am the god of pop culture and a rock n roll saint. The writing references a lot of things. At times they feel rather banal, dragging things on and on and then suddenly there was a death and it thrusts you into a state of melancholy. I wanted Iggy Papershoes to be a villain but I ended falling in love with him.
God this is an awful book. In a good way, that is.
God this is an awful book. In a good way, that is.
February 23, 2023
I loved this book and I wish more people knew about it.
It’s cool, perfect for music fans out there as it has so many interesting references to songs and artists etc. The main character is a poc woman trying to navigate the 90s punk scene of London while dealing with self-entitled men (obviously). It’s quite dark and definitely distressing at times.
It’s cool, perfect for music fans out there as it has so many interesting references to songs and artists etc. The main character is a poc woman trying to navigate the 90s punk scene of London while dealing with self-entitled men (obviously). It’s quite dark and definitely distressing at times.
July 18, 2022
Baddie bok💅🏻
March 12, 2023
chaos ! irvine welsh meets eliza clark.
gritty grungey groupy
gritty grungey groupy
January 4, 2024
this is probably the first troubled girl, female rage, truly fucking brutal, messy and biting book i’ve read that actually delivers on that. so so good and i Love the footnotes giving music history/fashion history context. scarlett is in top 10 characters ever for me
September 6, 2023
this book really do be an anti-ode to existing
brilliantly fucked up
November 14, 2024
Jesus Christ
June 19, 2025
"i couldn’t look within myself, only out"
January 24, 2023
a phantasmagoria of drugs sex violence and music - really good if you liked my year of rest and relaxation, prozac nation, 100 boyfriends… as well as feminist literature and rock n roll history. so fucking good
January 8, 2025
90s party vibes the book
I now always read fuck as fark (Scarlet ml <<<<333333)
SHE DID NOTHING WRONG FREE MY GIRL 😡😡😡🔥🔥🔥🔥✨✨❤️❤️❤️
10/10 but very graphic at the scary bits
I now always read fuck as fark (Scarlet ml <<<<333333)
SHE DID NOTHING WRONG FREE MY GIRL 😡😡😡🔥🔥🔥🔥✨✨❤️❤️❤️
10/10 but very graphic at the scary bits
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews