The Best Review I've Read ... I'm lucky. And shocked.

Days of Throbbing Gristle by Kevin Cole

Reviewed by Tamsin de la Harpe

4½ acid guzzling teenagers out 5 (Stealing Mack Moyer's rating system.)

Meet Sam Hay, an ambitious, pan-sexual, utterly shameless, smooth-as-fuck, nihilistic mofo, who leaves England to study at the expense of his rich and gullible host family, The Turners.

Meet the Turners. Wait, you already know them. Everybody knows a family likes this. Mr Turner is a conniving, spineless workaholic. Mrs Turner is a controlling psycho-bitch with an itch that needs scratching (and Mr. Turner ain't doing the scratching ...you dig?) Then there's teenager Heather Turner who hates everybody. With good reason.

So what happens when Sam Hay joins the world's most dysfunctional Brady Bunch? Well nothing good, but add a faux lesbian goth, A few acid-popping punks, a metalhead with self proclaimed multiple personality disorder and the sweetest Jehovah's Witness you will ever meet and it's a rollercoaster of Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll.

By the way, you know there's some seriously groovy writing going on when the most sympathetic character is a Bible Basher.

Days of Throbbing Gristle is a coming of age masterpiece. It pulls no punches. I dare you not to wince while Cole takes a razor made of sheer wit and insight to the layers of American culture and peels it back, bit by shallow, hypocritical bit with unblinking, relentless prose. This is a book shaped to reflect western culture back at us, and it ain't pretty. In fact, it's so acidically sharp, and uncomfortably on the mark, that I should warn you now: Kevin Cole is not a known giver of fucks.

Recreating the punk sub-cultures of the eighties, in acid-tripping detail, Cole brings it all to brilliant , vibrant, throbbing life. Early on, the young anti-hero seems more than just a snide prick, in fact, he's a bastard filled bastard with a creamy bastard topping, particularly when it comes to lovers. However, by the end you get to see some of the most astounding character development I've seen since...ever? No spoilers here. Suffice to to say by the end of the book I tipped my hat to Sam Hay.

So here you go. You're welcome, because now you can read DOTG and satisfy your inner hipster by telling everybody at dinner parties years from now that you read Kevin before he won that Pulitzer.

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