What We Do Is Secret: A Novel

by Kief Hillsbery

“Why am I a punk? Because I wasn’t anything before, except different. And now it’s like I’m different, but with a vengeance.”

It’s been months since the suicide of Darby Crash, L.A. punk rock icon and lead singer of the Germs. He checked out on the same day John Lennon was shot: December 8, 1980. But for Rockets Redglare, it feels like yesterday. Darby was the hot-as-sun center of Rockets’s world. Part ringleader, part god, and all charismatic manipulator, Darby was as close to family as a hustler and street kid like Rockets might ever get.

Now, as Rockets amps up for another night looking for tricks and scrounging a meal, Sex Pistols and X lyrics on repeat in his head, he knows he’s come to a turning point–the scene is changing, and nothing’s as easy as it was when Darby brought him into the fold.

From the underground clubs to the back of the giant “H” in the Hollywood sign, Rockets and his crew of friends spend the night burning bridges, building new ones, tripping and talking and searching for answers. As the dark gives way to early morning, the punks and the cops engage in their ritual standoff–and Rockets faces the ultimate choice: Should he stay or should he go?

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Music, LGBT, Gay Fiction, M M Romance, Punk

368 pages, Paperback

First published April 12, 2005

About the author

Kief Hillsbery is an American writer and Lambda Literary Award nominee.

Reviews

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finding a place.

The one thing in all LA, I love the purple sky at night.

All the zeitgeist of the early eighties in Los Angeles and the changing punk scene, and while there's a definite warning bell of the skinhead coup, it's not the primary focus. I went in expecting crazy stories--I got them, but there's this real deceptive undertow of emotion that builds and builds around Rockets, a young teenage boy living on the streets of LA and trying to figure out his place and what to do, and I got pulled under. By the end, I just felt...heartsore.

"Why was it hard to watch me?" I ask. "you never said."

He thinks about it all the way down to the sidewalk.

"Because it felt like someone should be stopping you," he says finally, "and nobody was."

The story is told from Rockets' viewpoint and you get this front and center seat to street life and what the characters wanted, what they were willing to sacrifice to have it, but there's the growing question in Rockets' mind about why. It shows issues of race, sexual orientation, and policing and not in heavy-handed ways, but as a part of the daily fracas of Rockets' life.

"But it's so blatant," Tim says. "The police don't notice?"

"What they really notice is a black dude north of the Santa Monica Freeway, period," Blitzer says. "A lot more than a white daddy, comma, looking for a pink boy."

"Pink?" David says.

Time echoes it, and there's that fuckin silence again, like after "How old," it's stale as hail on the Yukon trail.

"Fuck all of you! I've got pubic hair! Here! Look!"

Rockets is a young, gay male trying to navigate life with no resources aside from general group goodwill. A group that revolved around the punk scene, how they looked out for each other and did the best they could with what little they had. Not going to give more backstory because reading the unveiling is a big part of the punch in this one.

Waiting's basically wanting, there's only one letter difference, you can't be waiting without wanting the wait to be over. So when you're waiting you're controlled by wanting, and wanting's what controls everything.

Punk. The primal scream I can relate to, but there is so much beyond rage that never fit for me. I don't have that destructive force in me, the hermit dissociated always appealed more. So much of life was a train I didn't want to get on; I never believed in Willoughby, a dream stop. Nonexistent. Even so, the references and the language are compelling. There's a cadence to the storytelling and it gets stronger at times, just pulling you along.

I love this story like I love LA: All the fun parts, the wild parts, the broken parts.

Let you see, what you wouldn't, the woman's face first seeing me, soft warm breath, sudden in-drawn deep, "How old are you, boy, how could, who would, who did this to you, tell me."

"I did."

More beloved quotes that didn't make the cut above:

"But I don't trip on it too hard now, how the Go-Gos are number one from sea to slimy sea when Darby said they've got no lyrics, they've got nothing, they're going nowhere, how it's maybe morning in America to Reagan, but midnight in Hollywood to me, and I can't get there from here."

"Somehow the freeway part is what makes it feel possible, make's it real, that unbroken pavement so no map's necessary, unwinding like a licorice whip to I-want-Candyland, pine trees, rivers, grizzlies, a thousand fuckin miles, my country tis of fuckin thee, and the you-are-here is just a bus ride away."

Darby said.
You know what's fun? You take like ten hits of acid, drink a six-pack of beer, and you go to the Santa Monica pier, there's a bridge there that goes nowhere, 'cause their suppose to lower it for boats, and you can go out on the end and jump off, right? And you can swim, and it's so great 'cause it's dark, you know, and you can just swim and it doesn't matter if you live or die or anything, just swim and swim, and you feel the fish nibbling at your feet."

"It's football jock who last year saw us on the street and yelled and spit, and now they've got their number-one crops and their motor boots and their bandanas, and they're punk rockers, a different breed of mommy's little monster though, with mommies to go back to, mommies and Mustangs and anarchy posters over their soft beds."

And trends are for terminal morons, I don't follow them at all, like for example last year's top-drawer trend, the one before ska was being bisexual. Which on-fire fags like Tony the Hustler were down for completely, because they were first ready, able, and more than willing dudes who came to mind to all these clueless vals and surf boys who wanted in on the latest. Though what I heard from those in the two-way know was double your pleasure in theory, double your trouble in practice.


"Shhhh!" Tim says. "We don't want to wake them."

"Why not? It's your fuckin room. And anyways what the--"

"It's not our room," David says. "The phone in our room's avocado. This one's harvest."


If this didn't take you back...

[Cha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm giving this book five stars because of Thorn Kief Hillsbery's inventive use of language and the amazing ease in which he captures a particular time and place. The time, 1981 and the place Los Angeles, most specifically the LA punk scene- not the one all rose tinted by the Hollywood industry machine, but the gritty one. The one that I heard stories about from near-dead human wreckages that barely survived it. Their voices were here.

Not only that, but Hillsbery thinly veiled one of my favorite writers of all time as a character working a late night taco shack. Placing her in a historical context and a moment in the book that rang truer than true.

One day I'll buy my own copy and underline my favorite one liners and passages. Yeah, it's that kind of book.

Would I let Rocket's drive? If I was fifteen again and could go along for the ride, hell yeah I would.

[Suki Fleet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit thinking when I started reading this book I was never going to finish, the language is very stylistic and it does take a good few pages to let yourself become immersed, but you have to...this book is unbelievably good.
It is one of my favorite books of all time, and I have to say a great influence on my writing. Rocket and the other characters are so true it is beautiful.
And like so many other people have commented...you reach the end, you will immediately re read the whole book.

Some books leave you feeling changed...this is one of those books.

Absolutely stunning.

[Randall · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read to about page seven before realizing there was no chance I'd ever finish it. It is written as if meant to be read aloud by some douche-y spoken-word artist in the most masturbatory way possible. This is a shame, as I'm fairly certain a 300-page book about the Germs would be a really interesting read, but I wouldn't have survived an attempt on this one.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first saw Penelope Spheeris' (later of "Wayne's World" fame) documentary about the LA punk scene, "The Decline of Western Civilization," in Pullman, Washington at WSU in 1982. I spent that summer in Orange County, CA where I got a great tan, the worst hangover I've ever had, and was introduced to philosophy, a discipline I've followed ever since. One of the memorable characters in the film was a dilapidated wreck of a human being with a gift for lyrics and a weakness for drugs named Darby Crash, lead singer of the notorious band The Germs. His presence (or absence, since he died of an overdose before the film was released and the events of this novel take place) haunts this novel like a ghost. The tale is of a drug-fueled night in the life of 13-year-old street punk Rockets Redglare, his friend and lover Blitzer, their lesbian friends Siouxsie and Squid, and two gay fellows they befriend on a night of close calls, self-abuse, murder, and near suicide. The writing is stream of consciousness poetic prose, part Joyce, part Rimbaud, part Patti Smith, part teenage pop bullshit, and at times the plot gets lost amidst the author's constant need for yet more wordplay and yet another cultural insider's reference. The most moving scene is near the end between Rockets and the very real Phranc, who comes off as one of the most humane and loving presences in the novel. Personally, I think the whole scene is more deserving of the treatment it got in Alex Cox's "Repo Man" (to me the funniest movie ever made), but Hillsbery decided it needed a loving requiem, and this novel is clearly a labor of love. For my part, I've decided I'm more of a Warren Zevon kind of guy when it comes to LA.

[catechism · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh, I couldn't finish it, although I liked it at first. I thought it was fun and clever and I enjoy inventive wordplay and experimental writing. But in this case, I really felt it got in the way. Maybe if the book had been shorter, but as it stands, I only made it halfway through before I had to put it down. The story was difficult to follow and I found the near-constant lyric-dropping to be pretentious and exclusive and really, really irritating. Great, I can recognize an X lyric from three pages out. Someone give me a prize.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never fully adjusted to the vernacular used in this book—it threw me off. I found that my eyes just slid over the words and I had to really concentrate while reading. I liked the story, I even liked the style of writing—it was just difficult for me.

I like books about the early LA punk rock scene so this was suited to my taste in that way. Lots of familiar names and places. I guess the author was actually born here in Portland but spent time in LA during the era he wrote about.

[Manuela · Rating 5 out of 5]

You have to read the book as fast as it's written or thought by the main character, it's a stream of consciousness so it's hard to put it down and start again, personally, I just wanted to read on and on, tripping over words and pages. The writing style is brilliant and unique, capturing form the first to the last page and it definitely is one of my favorite new books.

[Kitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hillsbery makes tremendous points in a punk-rock slam-poet prose, but god if it isn't impossible to read with my dyslexia!

[Shahin Chandrasoma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a contradiction... At times it feels like a 2 star read and at time it feels like a 5 star read. With a unique voice, it posits the reader in the 1980s LA hardcore punk scene, following a day in the life of Rockets Redglare, a homeless gay punk kid set adrift after the suicide of his idol-slash-lover Darby Crash, front man for the pioneering punk group Germs. At times the prose is electric, free associating beat poetry laden with lyrics, references, slang and rhythmic rhyming. At times that voice, usually under the influence of various drugs, becomes rambling and incoherent. Ultimately a dense, deceptively challenging, and satisfying read that comes across something like an iteration for Less Than Zero as told be Jack Kerouac, at once both a love letter to Los Angeles and a Dear John letter to Los Angeles. Unquestionably unique and technically impressive, this is a difficult read with regards to narrative style as well as subject matter, but those coming through may find a uncompromising stare at life in the city for a punk in '81. Overall, recommended.

[Just This · Rating 3 out of 5]

gritty coming of age novel ... american teen deals with grief, girls, drugs, cops life

[Liam Ostermann]

I now own the novel and can't wait to start it - I loved his earlier novel 'War Boy'.

[Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

punk purple prose

[anarres. · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I'm honest I should dock a star for the dense wordplay making a couple sections of the book pretty hard to parse, but I just love this novel so dang much

[Asa G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was so happily and stupefyingly lost in the constant, neonlit night in the underbelly of the early LA punk scene.
Less a tourist than a displaced ethereal time traveler, I rode the stream-of-consciousness verbal eddies of Rockets as he drove me through his world.

[Vampire Who Baked · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exhilarating read!

The language is incredibly inventive-- nearly every line in the book has wordplay and rhyming slang and-- to the extent that it often feels like a novel-length cryptic crossword. I have so many passages underlined from this book that had I read it in paperback, my copy would have had more red lines than black text. The writer stretches meaning and comprehensibility to its limits, while still maintaining a you-never-say-die-but-do-you brash punk attitude while somehow still maintaining body and soul the fact that most of these studded-and-mohawked posse boys and girls are ultimately scared and often homeless teenagers, who look out for each other when no one else will. Indeed, almost every review online mentioned how accurately the book captures the 80's L.A. punk scene, and how if you are a punk fan you will be astounded and delighted by this book and all the references therein and all the dialogue and text that are actually lyrics from cult punk tracks of the day.

Well, I am entirely unfamiliar with punk beyond the bare rhymes-with-stones, but this book delighted me, stunned me, shocked me, made me laugh, and left me speechless, sometimes all at the same time. Highly, highly, HIGHLY recommended!

[Ransom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my all time favourite books. The way in which it is written I could see irritating some readers, but if you can catch the flow of the book and ride it through Rockets' constant stream of consciousness as he moves through a day and night in his life, you'll get sucked in. As for the comments from some readers calling the book "contrived" due to the constant "pop culture" references, I have to say, I disagree with you entirely. This book was not written in order to target ALL readers, and therefore was not written to cater to them either. This book was written by someone who knows the scene intimately and was able to present his knowledge in a most eloquent way to others hungry for it. I've been involved with the punk scene since I was 13 years old and loved the way he integrated real players and events into this fictitious account of a young boys life, coming up in the LA punk scene in the early 80s. I understand why some readers would give up on it halfway through, but I highly recommend you don't. There is a revelation at the end of the book that just may have you starting from the beginning again immediately, and understanding a whole lot more the second time around.

[ILANA · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love this book. There's a quote towards the beginning that really sums up my own life: "And I try to be all, No Fear and No Regrets but there's one kind of fear you can't exactly high-five with and make it all better now, that fear of who you really are, ocean deep inside." I loved Hillsbery's other novel, War Boy. But for some reason, even though I really enjoy reading this novel, I just cannot finish it. I'll put it down for a few weeks, but it's written stream of consciousness so when I pick it up again, I'm so lost I have to start over.

This is not the case with War Boy.

[Nina · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a wild ride. If you are not a fan of the Germs or this music scene, you may not completely get what the author or the MC is saying. But, overall, the message I got from the book is, some kids are just trying to survive, no matter what era, what country, what stage of dysfunction they may be in. Also, I noticed the "drug-voice" of the main character was rather hard to understand at times. I felt sorry for many of the characters in this book. The author showed that some of them could only find companionship, love and understanding on the street, where they faced so many dangers every day.

[Sara Gerot · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is not one sentence in this book that isn't on fire. Don't plan on stopping, or breathing. It will turn your hands to ash. The writing is unequivocally to the moon amazing. Seriously, read this. I had been in a reading slump after The Kindly Ones. Who could touch that, was my feeling. But. Pick this up. Read the first couple pages, and you will know. . . .now here's an "effing" book. Here's an "effing" story. Here's where I am going to be for a bit so don't even bother to talk to me about anything else.

[Wysteria · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another book I really want half stars on. I'm firmly between 2 and 3 stars here. But I'll err on the side of liking this more than I didn't, mostly because there are some parts that flow, that really capture the essence of visceral stream of conscious punk teenage-dom and it was great. But there are moments when it was really really disjointed and felt like someone pointing out all the cracks in a tile floor and making you find the broken pieces and fit them all back together. It just wasn't happening.

[Melody Yeung · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slow read at first, hard to follow- with his conscious vomiting a bunch of pop culture references/made up words all over the place, but it's his word-choice that gets to the heart of who Rockets Redglare is, and to the soul that's lurking within.

Minus 1 star for being crazy hard to finish 346 pages in this kind of banter, but the story is gold.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my new favorites. Beautiful, trippy language, an explosion of words that are almost too fast for the thought process. A unique look at American youth that aren't focused on in literature, with a raw heart.

[Brenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really, really, really loved this book. It took me a while to adjust to the style of writing, but once I did, it was a smooth read. As soon as I finished it, I immediately re-read it!!

[Alex West · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, I just saw the movie and it was no where near what the book was. The language in the book flows perfectly.

[Sav · Rating 2 out of 5]

Contrived, almost to the point of being completely unreadable.

[Atzin · Rating 1 out of 5]

bullshit-bullshit-bullshit