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A review by momedusahorror
Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno
5.0
So Joe Meno was my professor at Columbia which is why I picked this book up (that and it being about punk kids in Chicago sparked my interest.) But I wanna make it clear, although Joe was a fantastic professor, I had no bias when going into reading this. I’m judging it 100% fairly.
That being said, this is a fantastic f*cking book. I felt several emotions reading it— sadness for Gretchen, sadness for Brian, annoyance at Brian, excitement for Brian, anger at all the stupid poser a$$ punks, etc.
Look. This book came out in 2004 and was about teenage white kids on the south side in the 90’s. So there’s some stuff, words mostly, that came up that weren’t great. But you see the change throughout the book. You see Brian growing and giving a middle finger to that bs.
The best part, or at least the biggest turning point for me, is when Brian tells the priest to shave his head. THAT was the moment Brian became punk. And everything that followed was just more evidence that this kid had it in him all along. That realization of the inequities between the white kids and the black kids, the moment it dawned on him that all these kids are just posing— trying to fit in, trying to be accepted… that was the most punk rock of it all.
Man. Meno really captured the feeling of highschool. The seasons in Chicago. The southside. The music. What being punk actually means.
I knew he was a great writer, but somehow he turned a coming of age story about highschool wannabe punks into something I’ll remember for a long time, if not forever.
That being said, this is a fantastic f*cking book. I felt several emotions reading it— sadness for Gretchen, sadness for Brian, annoyance at Brian, excitement for Brian, anger at all the stupid poser a$$ punks, etc.
Look. This book came out in 2004 and was about teenage white kids on the south side in the 90’s. So there’s some stuff, words mostly, that came up that weren’t great. But you see the change throughout the book. You see Brian growing and giving a middle finger to that bs.
The best part, or at least the biggest turning point for me, is when Brian tells the priest to shave his head. THAT was the moment Brian became punk. And everything that followed was just more evidence that this kid had it in him all along. That realization of the inequities between the white kids and the black kids, the moment it dawned on him that all these kids are just posing— trying to fit in, trying to be accepted… that was the most punk rock of it all.
Man. Meno really captured the feeling of highschool. The seasons in Chicago. The southside. The music. What being punk actually means.
I knew he was a great writer, but somehow he turned a coming of age story about highschool wannabe punks into something I’ll remember for a long time, if not forever.