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The Last Mad Surge of Youth
John Barrett is northern, working-class and possesses petrol-soaked charisma. His band, Killing Stars, toured the world and enjoyed numerous Top Ten hits while holding on to an integrity they forged through the revolution of punk and new wave. Inevitably, the hits dried up, his time ran out. He's now washed up, an alcoholic who considers his current album utter s**t' and says so on national television. Dave Carey, his boyhood mate and a fellow cultural insurrectionist, was left behind years before, severed from the dream. After a string of humiliating public incidents, Barrett summons him from a humdrum job on a local weekly newspaper to ghost-write his autobiography. He undertakes the task by Barrett's hospital bed where the pair reflect on fame, addiction, the legacy of punk, girls they've loved (and lost), suicide, mortality, where it all went wrong. And right.
203 pages, Paperback
First published May 13, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 3, 2020
The Last Mad Surge Of Youth (2009) by Mark Hodkinson is very enjoyable. It would also make an excellent companion piece to Mayflies (2020) by Andrew O'Hagan. There are some very striking parallels which make me wonder if O'Hagan had read The Last Mad Surge Of Youth. Either way, both books are well worth reading, particularly if you enjoy a credible evocation of the late 70s/early 80s and all the wonderful music inspired by the punk explosion.
Mark Hodkinson is clearly both passionate and knowledgable about music, and this shines through in this rites-of-passage tale.
It's also a very unsentimental look at life in a successful group, and specifically how fame affects those who make it, and those who don't, in this instance an ex group member whose life turned out very differently. Both lives remain intertwined for many years and there's a pleasing conclusion to their respective all-too-believable life stories.
Mark Hodkinson owns the book's publisher, Ponoma. Pomona Books (www.pomonauk.co.uk) has published titles by Simon Armitage, Bob Stanley, Barry Hines, Ian McMillan, Ray Gosling, David Gedge, Stuart Murdoch (of Belle and Sebastian) and many more. Mark Hodkinson also commissioned and edited the much-acclaimed biography ‘JD Salinger: A Life Raised High’ which was made into a film starring Nicholas Hoult and is published in the United States by Penguin Random House. I'm inspired to read more books published by Ponoma Books.
5/5
Set in both the present day and the early 1980s, when Maggie Thatcher ruled the world (or thought she did) and new wave kids were dreaming up insurrection, The Last Mad Surge of Youth is a novel about bands, growing up, moving away and getting famous, suicide, staying at home and getting bored, fanzines, the bomb, love, alcoholism, egotism and self-doubt.
The narrative begins with the D-I-Y ethos of punk, steering through major label hype, to tired aftermath. While the protagonist, John Barrett, holds centre stage, his boyhood pal, Dave Carey, who opted out of the band for fear of playing live, is left at home, to brood. The pair meet up years later in controversial circumstances and ponder how now became then, and what they do next.
Mark Hodkinson is clearly both passionate and knowledgable about music, and this shines through in this rites-of-passage tale.
It's also a very unsentimental look at life in a successful group, and specifically how fame affects those who make it, and those who don't, in this instance an ex group member whose life turned out very differently. Both lives remain intertwined for many years and there's a pleasing conclusion to their respective all-too-believable life stories.
Mark Hodkinson owns the book's publisher, Ponoma. Pomona Books (www.pomonauk.co.uk) has published titles by Simon Armitage, Bob Stanley, Barry Hines, Ian McMillan, Ray Gosling, David Gedge, Stuart Murdoch (of Belle and Sebastian) and many more. Mark Hodkinson also commissioned and edited the much-acclaimed biography ‘JD Salinger: A Life Raised High’ which was made into a film starring Nicholas Hoult and is published in the United States by Penguin Random House. I'm inspired to read more books published by Ponoma Books.
5/5
Set in both the present day and the early 1980s, when Maggie Thatcher ruled the world (or thought she did) and new wave kids were dreaming up insurrection, The Last Mad Surge of Youth is a novel about bands, growing up, moving away and getting famous, suicide, staying at home and getting bored, fanzines, the bomb, love, alcoholism, egotism and self-doubt.
The narrative begins with the D-I-Y ethos of punk, steering through major label hype, to tired aftermath. While the protagonist, John Barrett, holds centre stage, his boyhood pal, Dave Carey, who opted out of the band for fear of playing live, is left at home, to brood. The pair meet up years later in controversial circumstances and ponder how now became then, and what they do next.
May 1, 2016
2 moody chops Northern lads in 1980 decide to form a post-punk band and tear down society with their downbeat raincoat-clad sub-Pop Group posturing. Meanwhile, in 2009, the lead singer is a clapped-out alcoholic bore whose new album is a commercial and artistic irrelevance, and he can only get press coverage by swearing on daytime TV. The two timelines are intercut, giving us some nice gentle satire of the ridiculousness of male self-importance at two stages of life, and there is a neat narrative twist near the end, just in case (like me) you find your interest flagging. The reason for that would be that John Barrett is such an horrendous prick, he clearly had no trouble transitioning from an Ian Curtis exterior to revealing the self-pitying Chris Rea within (maybe I'm unfair, and Chris Rea is better than that). The career of "Killing Stars" is not based on any actual band, and it's hard to believe there ever could have been such a group, who seemed to start out as manifesto-spouting anarcho-squat timewasters but transformed into a Duran Duran-style hit machine in about 5 minutes (yes, I know Scritti Politti changed, but not *like that*). None of Barrett's lyrics sound like anything other than dreary rockspeak. There is poignancy in the tales of youthful outsiderdom, being the dreamers in the Woodwork class, but they shed their larval stage awfully quickly. Then again, the "lesson of maturity" bit in the hospital scenes at the end is rather quick and trite. There's nothing *wrong* with provincial teenagers wanting to read highbrow books, it's what they do with them that may provoke smirking, but the impulse toward experimentation should never be ridiculed.
A few quibbles:
(1) Did anyone use the term "kiddie-fiddler" in 1980?
(2) Was "sad case" already in use at that time?
(3) The timeline seems a bit wobbly, if The Smiths and Jane's Addiction are already cool bands by 4 years after Killing Stars getting signed (pg. 180)
(4) The name of the band's first proper manager is given as "Rob Murray" but gets remembered as "Rob Bailey" (pg 307)
(5) In 2009, would the media actually care about some old fart swearing a bit on a daytime show? Seems a bit like a 90s thing that no one would notice in a digital world where there isn't a regular audience watching whatever is on BBC1 or ITV. Then again: the Andrew Sachs thing.
This book leaves me with a heightened respect for Mark Stewart, who ran away from The Pop Group when they were on the cover of everything and had the possibility of signing a deal and taking their shouty teenage anarchism... somewhere, probably ending up in the same precincts as Simple Minds and U2 after a few years. He said no, and is now a different kind of middle-aged grouch.
A few quibbles:
(1) Did anyone use the term "kiddie-fiddler" in 1980?
(2) Was "sad case" already in use at that time?
(3) The timeline seems a bit wobbly, if The Smiths and Jane's Addiction are already cool bands by 4 years after Killing Stars getting signed (pg. 180)
(4) The name of the band's first proper manager is given as "Rob Murray" but gets remembered as "Rob Bailey" (pg 307)
(5) In 2009, would the media actually care about some old fart swearing a bit on a daytime show? Seems a bit like a 90s thing that no one would notice in a digital world where there isn't a regular audience watching whatever is on BBC1 or ITV. Then again: the Andrew Sachs thing.
This book leaves me with a heightened respect for Mark Stewart, who ran away from The Pop Group when they were on the cover of everything and had the possibility of signing a deal and taking their shouty teenage anarchism... somewhere, probably ending up in the same precincts as Simple Minds and U2 after a few years. He said no, and is now a different kind of middle-aged grouch.
February 4, 2010
Recommended for anyone who was a teenager in the fervour of punk and post-punk. A story told in parallel, of lives both as they are now and as they were when teenagers. Captures beautifully the missionary zeal of post-punk theorists and the eternal verities of showbiz
November 6, 2022
Loved this book - Mark has a great sense of humour and his books are very much underrated. I have never laughed so much. Anyone who grew up in the 70s & 80s will relate to this book. A nostalgic and great read.
November 6, 2018
Enjoyable tale of a new wave punk on the wane. Persuaded me to stop wasting my time reading a much worse book!
July 24, 2012
Getting together to form a band is a rite of passage for many teenage boys. This book explores what happens when that band goes on to be successful.
The early narrative alternates between the 1980s - as the band forms and tastes its first success - and the present as the lead singer Barrett slowly self-destructs with a drink problem, a fading solo career and a stale relationship.
The two threads coalesce when Carey - a member of the initial line up who left before they were signed to a record label - is contracted to ghost write Barrett's autobiography. Carey had ambitions to be an author but has spent 20 years stuck as a reporter on an obscure local paper.
This is a book about dreams and how pursuing them - even if you get what you want - comes at a price. In many ways this is classic Nick Hornby territory, it lacks Hornby's sharp wit but makes up for that with vivid and believable characters. You can empathise with Barrett even as he tears himself apart.
The early narrative alternates between the 1980s - as the band forms and tastes its first success - and the present as the lead singer Barrett slowly self-destructs with a drink problem, a fading solo career and a stale relationship.
The two threads coalesce when Carey - a member of the initial line up who left before they were signed to a record label - is contracted to ghost write Barrett's autobiography. Carey had ambitions to be an author but has spent 20 years stuck as a reporter on an obscure local paper.
This is a book about dreams and how pursuing them - even if you get what you want - comes at a price. In many ways this is classic Nick Hornby territory, it lacks Hornby's sharp wit but makes up for that with vivid and believable characters. You can empathise with Barrett even as he tears himself apart.
July 25, 2013
I didn't feel like this book lived up to the reviews it was given. I was expecting a bit more of depth to characters other than Barrett, especially as I felt Carey had the most interesting story- all the things that had been so important in his childhood while his friends seemingly got to live the dream. The only true discussion of what this dream really entailed was towards the end of the book. Which, also, had a kind of bad ending even if it was meant to be symbolic or whatever. The best bit of writing that I felt truly captured human emotion was the sections talking about Carey's break up. I felt I could truly empathise with his character at that point. Other than those short bursts I wasn't really hooked to this book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews