Book Review Janine Bullman Punk Fiction 2009 Portico Press
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The British Punk music movement was short-lived. It coincided with the rise and fall of its leading band, The Sex Pistols, starting in 1977 and doomed by 1979-80. Goth and New Romantic music, as well as a lot of pseudo punk, took over, and the anger, anarchy and outrage were diluted away.
The spirit of punk was however, highly influential and inspiring to many who followed on, growing into the politically and socially aware of today.
Bullman (editor) has presented a collection of stories and thinly disguised essays on the punk era and influences. Many of the stories are surprisingly anti-punk, which comes across as punk in attitude in its own right. Others lament the short span of life of the movement, and the persecution punks faced from establishment figures and other groups, such as skinheads and rednecks, eager to beat the punks up.
I’ve reviewed many of the better, longer stories individually, such as those by Billy Bragg and Billy Childish.
Most of the stories use a title or line of lyrics from a punk song and add a brief essay on how the author was inspired by the bands. The Sex Pistols, X-Ray Specs, and The Buzzcocks are used frequently here.
Some stories work exceptionally well for a simple, near documentary honesty. The worst has to be Dev Hynes’s The KKK Took My Baby Away, which is the only science fiction story in the book. The hero uses a stolen spaceship to pursue the aliens who have abducted his lover. The KKK is not the Ku Klux Klan, but an extra-terrestrial species called Krahpaltilt Kequa Konsalant. It’s a rare poor story in an otherwise terrific collection.
The anthology was written for charity, (The Teenage Cancer Trust), though it was out of print before I discovered the book in my local library. I hope that its sales benefited the charity well.
Arthur Chappell