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The Sabotage Cafe
As a teenager in the 1980s punk scene, Julia suffered an unspeakable trauma.Years later, she has made a new life for herself in the suburbs, desperately working to maintain a sense of normalcy.But when Julia's sixteen-year-old daughter, Cheryl, goes missing, Julia is forced to envision her every move. From the city's back alleys to the abandoned Sabotage Café, Julia watches her daughter retrace her own coming-of-age, a mélange of sex, drugs, and random acts of violence.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
253 pages, Hardcover
First published August 28, 2007
6 people are currently reading
188 people want to read
About the author
Joshua Furst
5 books47 followersJoshua Furst’s critically acclaimed book of stories, Short People, was described by the Miami Herald as “a near magical collection.” The Los Angeles Times called it “Startling . . . a thoughtful if disturbing portrait of what it means to be a child. Or, more to the point, what it means to be human.” And the Times of London said "Any one of these stories is enough to break your heart. . . . Joshua Furst's debut is both enjoyable and important.” His work has been published in The Chicago Tribune, Conjunctions, Five Chapters and The Crab Orchard Review among other places and given citations for notable achievement by The Best American Short Stories and The O’Henry Awards.
Among the awards and grants he has received are a 2001-2002 James Michener-Paul Engle Fellowship from the James Michener Foundation/Copernicus Society of America, a 1997 Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award for his short story “Red Lobster,” and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony and ArtOmi/Ledig House. He was a finalist for the 1992 Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and a runner up in the 2001 Playboy College Fiction Contest.
From 1993 through 1998, he was an active participant in the New York alternative theatre scene. Among other accomplishments in this field, he helped organize and run Nada Theatre’s 1995 Obie award winning Faust Festival and was one of the producers of the 1998 New York RAT conference which brought experimental theatre artists from across the United States together for a week of performance and symposia. His plays include Whimper, Myn and The Ellipse and Other Shapes. They have been produced by numerous theatres, both in the United States and abroad, including PS122, Adobe Theatre Company, Cucaracha Theatre Company, HERE, The Demarco European Art Foundation, and Annex Theatre in Seattle.
He studied as an undergraduate at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, receiving a BFA in Dramatic Writing in 1993 and did graduate work at The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, from which he received an MFA with Honors in 2001.
Joshua Furst lives in New York City, and teaches fiction and playwriting at The Pratt Institute.
Among the awards and grants he has received are a 2001-2002 James Michener-Paul Engle Fellowship from the James Michener Foundation/Copernicus Society of America, a 1997 Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award for his short story “Red Lobster,” and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony and ArtOmi/Ledig House. He was a finalist for the 1992 Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and a runner up in the 2001 Playboy College Fiction Contest.
From 1993 through 1998, he was an active participant in the New York alternative theatre scene. Among other accomplishments in this field, he helped organize and run Nada Theatre’s 1995 Obie award winning Faust Festival and was one of the producers of the 1998 New York RAT conference which brought experimental theatre artists from across the United States together for a week of performance and symposia. His plays include Whimper, Myn and The Ellipse and Other Shapes. They have been produced by numerous theatres, both in the United States and abroad, including PS122, Adobe Theatre Company, Cucaracha Theatre Company, HERE, The Demarco European Art Foundation, and Annex Theatre in Seattle.
He studied as an undergraduate at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, receiving a BFA in Dramatic Writing in 1993 and did graduate work at The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, from which he received an MFA with Honors in 2001.
Joshua Furst lives in New York City, and teaches fiction and playwriting at The Pratt Institute.
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February 4, 2011
From an old issue of Cometbus:
'Punk rock love is fucking behind the dumpster down the street from the show. Fucking in the shower at the Hotel Carlton. Making out in the recycle bin. Looking at her tattoos while she's asleep. Taking showers together. Playing checkers with cigarette butts. Watching her band play. Dumpstering veggies together and then going back to her place and cooking up a feast. Knowing the same parts of the same songs. Both of you having the same ex-girlfriend. Punk rock love is having to tie her shoes for her cuz she's too drunk. Kissing under the overpass. Her sending you her whole diary to read. Her giving you ten rolls of duct tape for your birthday. Her beating up skinheads. Going to the prom on her motorcycle and checking in the helmets at the coatcheck. Getting astonished stares from all the jocks who thought you were gay, now they feel dumb cuz you're with an older punk rock bombshell and they're with their friend's little sister. Punk rock love is meeting her outside the club and her saying come home with me or I'm gonna kick your fuckin ass. Going home with her and she almost kicks your ass anyway. Sharing hairdye. Riding double on a bike. Being loud and not caring. Sneaky eyes and sleeveless t-shirts. The sun coming up and you realizing that there's other people on the beach. A good sleazy one week stand. Still being friends afterwards, most of the time. Punk rock love is her sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet you in the park. Running your fingers over her spikey hair. Her chewing on a flower and you having to call poison control when her tongue swells up. Bringing her to the laundromat for a date. Sharing a sleeping bag and waking up freezing in the middle of the night and her, bleary eyed, trying to heat it up with a blowdrier. Social Unrest playing "Ever Fallen in Love?" at the gig you're both at the night after she dumps you hard. Starting smoking again after that night. Punk rock love is her drawing on you. Her sleeping on your back. Her being mad at you for being such a jerk. Her thinking it's cool that you stink and your hair stands up by itself. Her having weird roommates who worship eggs. You waiting in the doorway for hours hoping she might pass by. Even in the snow. Her singing along with Descendents records over the air on her late night radio show. Her picture on the front page of the morning paper, getting arrested. Her borrowing your favorite black hat and never giving it back. Punk rock love is finding a girl who drinks as much coffee as you do. Going into the cafe where she works and she looks up and smiles and doesn't notice as she trips over a pile of 50 dishes. They hit the floor one by one and when it's all done everyone in the cafe applauds and you both turn beet red. Punk rock love is both of you doing fanzines. Years later her teaching English to college freshmen, you still doing fanzines. Her wearing glasses through her eyes are fine, using crutches though her legs are fine, and talking with a fake speech impediment. You just thinking it's rad girl style, until later when someone brings up the concept of self-imposed handicaps. Punk rock love is getting your first kiss and almost losing your virginity at the same time, meanwhile you're trying not to wake up the other person sleeping in the same bed. Groping in the bushes by the freeway and later you realize that all the passing cars could see you. Exploring the wasteland together. holding hands out on the fire escape. Lying in the grass in her backyard. Lying on the astroturf in her bedroom. Drinking tequila on her porch, on your birthday. Riding on her motorcylce early in the cold morning and you're holding on tight and steam is rising off of the river and you're thinking how she is maybe even better than the Ramones. Punk rock love is both being broke. Love letters. Finding out she sang "Stay Free" at her high school talent show. Finding out she's a little crazier than you thought when you finally get her in bed. Her boyfriend getting mad. Walking around with her and her nephew and everyone giving you dirty looks cuz they think he's your kid. Walking around with her and being happy and proud. Being sad together. Being sad by yourself. Missing her.'
I wanted this book to transport me back to a time and place I only knew from stories from a girl I used to pour all my problems out to on the phone, usually drunk late at night in college, and who I would then listen to her tell me her stories too. I wanted to have one of those mythical places of punk be opened, a place that existed in my imagination from reading zines and listening to records. Minneapolis, mecca of crusty-anarcho punx, the home of the largest anarcho-punk zine Profane Existence, city of Destroy!, Misery, Assrash, a bazillion Dis- bands, Code 13, Quincy Punx, Felix Von Havoc, the mainline from America to the Swedish political bands, a place of cider and cheap beer, guns and rottweilers, Anti-Fascist Action, the city where the political punks forcibly removed the skinhead population and sent them packing to St. Paul......
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I've learned to be disappointed with books that deal with punk. I blame myself. My own experiences and what I defined punk as I realize aren't the norm. Back when I still identified myself through this silly label I'd get pissed off about scholarly works or novels that portrayed punk as a bunch of nihilistic drunk morons raging about fucking shit up. These were the type of kids that annoyed me, they were the types of kids who in my own 'scene' I annoyed and who would threaten to beat me up when they were with a lot of their friends (a side story. My senior year in college my friend Tony and I started a joke power-violence band (power-violence was a late 1980's creation out of California originally defined by bands like Infest and Crossed Out, in the mid 1990's a second wave of bands came headed by Spazz and Charles Bronson, very short and very fast songs, that in the second wave started to take on a weird level of humor). We enlisted the help of a few other people and wrote a bunch of songs all based around the ease that we could flail around, fall down, do posi-youth style jumps and act generally act like idiots with nonsensical lyrics and anthem style choruses. It was quite fun, but not everyone got the joke. The people who really didn't get the joke were punks, the leather jacket with stud wearing types who would try to unplug our amps, threaten us with bodily harm and intimidation. The funny thing was when the punks in groups would see me on the street after the show where they tried to stop us from playing they would continue their threats, but if I ran into one of the punk kids by themselves they would be sheepish, claim they thought it was fucked up what their friends had done, etc., Of course I knew they were lying because I had the whole show on video and I knew exactly who did what at the show, since it was a lot of fun showing the video to people I'd seen it quite a few times (I wish I still knew where the video was now, I'd love to share my idiocy with everyone on youtube)). I never understood this type of punk, the drunk, spikes wearing, mohawk spouting type. To me it was just another type of conformity. To me the whole appeal of punk was the community that it created that allowed for you to open up a space for yourself to question and express things. In the pre-internet days it allowed a forum to be dissatisfied and connect with other people. My punk reality was only a small sliver out of the whole world of what would pass as 'punk', most people I was friends with and kept in touch with didn't have mohawks, dressed more or less normally, weren't out breaking things on the street and pogoing at shows. I would confuse my own limited viewpoint as being what was true. I was wrong. Punk in general is stupid. For every Born Against and The Pist there are ten thousand Causalities and Blanks 77. Like everywhere else, the idiots rule.
For the punk parts of this book it does a good job capturing the stupid nihilism of angry kids doing moronic things. I knew people just like the characters here and yep that is them. It didn't capture the time of Minneapolis I was looking for, all of those things I mentioned above didn't even exist in this book. It made me realize that I'd forgotten that bands like The Replacements also came from there, and that most people would think of them when you put the words punk and Minneapolis in the same sentence. Opps, once again my limited viewpoint warps the way I expect the world to be.
This is so far a really alienating review I'm sure.
The book is partly about young punk love, and that is why I included the Cometbus piece called "Punk Love" above. It's sort of the classic on the subject, and it captures the idea better than all the pages in this book do.
This book is ok. It's fun at times and at other times it's kind of tiresome. The author seems a little too fixated on having his characters have sex, and when I look back at the 255 pages it seems like too many of them deal with sex, not that there is any explicit sex, but just kind of mentioning that they are going to have it, or how they look for places to have it. And too many other pages are filled with the characters doing Bukowskian levels of drinking and drugging but without them ever getting seriously fucked up. Sixteen year olds don't hold their liquor and drugs like these kids do. It's a little too sensational, or maybe I'm just a little too prudish and take offense at there being much mention of sex, drinking and drugs and blow it out of proportion because of my own limited viewpoint of chaste sobriety.
The really interesting plot devices aren't introduced until the last third of the book, and I kind of would have liked the author to have started to explore some of these elements earlier in the book. I can't say much about them here in this review because they would spoil the structure of the novel.
Like most punks, this book had it's heart in the right place but it's execution at times was about as futile as throwing glass bottles against the wall of a McDonalds.
'Punk rock love is fucking behind the dumpster down the street from the show. Fucking in the shower at the Hotel Carlton. Making out in the recycle bin. Looking at her tattoos while she's asleep. Taking showers together. Playing checkers with cigarette butts. Watching her band play. Dumpstering veggies together and then going back to her place and cooking up a feast. Knowing the same parts of the same songs. Both of you having the same ex-girlfriend. Punk rock love is having to tie her shoes for her cuz she's too drunk. Kissing under the overpass. Her sending you her whole diary to read. Her giving you ten rolls of duct tape for your birthday. Her beating up skinheads. Going to the prom on her motorcycle and checking in the helmets at the coatcheck. Getting astonished stares from all the jocks who thought you were gay, now they feel dumb cuz you're with an older punk rock bombshell and they're with their friend's little sister. Punk rock love is meeting her outside the club and her saying come home with me or I'm gonna kick your fuckin ass. Going home with her and she almost kicks your ass anyway. Sharing hairdye. Riding double on a bike. Being loud and not caring. Sneaky eyes and sleeveless t-shirts. The sun coming up and you realizing that there's other people on the beach. A good sleazy one week stand. Still being friends afterwards, most of the time. Punk rock love is her sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet you in the park. Running your fingers over her spikey hair. Her chewing on a flower and you having to call poison control when her tongue swells up. Bringing her to the laundromat for a date. Sharing a sleeping bag and waking up freezing in the middle of the night and her, bleary eyed, trying to heat it up with a blowdrier. Social Unrest playing "Ever Fallen in Love?" at the gig you're both at the night after she dumps you hard. Starting smoking again after that night. Punk rock love is her drawing on you. Her sleeping on your back. Her being mad at you for being such a jerk. Her thinking it's cool that you stink and your hair stands up by itself. Her having weird roommates who worship eggs. You waiting in the doorway for hours hoping she might pass by. Even in the snow. Her singing along with Descendents records over the air on her late night radio show. Her picture on the front page of the morning paper, getting arrested. Her borrowing your favorite black hat and never giving it back. Punk rock love is finding a girl who drinks as much coffee as you do. Going into the cafe where she works and she looks up and smiles and doesn't notice as she trips over a pile of 50 dishes. They hit the floor one by one and when it's all done everyone in the cafe applauds and you both turn beet red. Punk rock love is both of you doing fanzines. Years later her teaching English to college freshmen, you still doing fanzines. Her wearing glasses through her eyes are fine, using crutches though her legs are fine, and talking with a fake speech impediment. You just thinking it's rad girl style, until later when someone brings up the concept of self-imposed handicaps. Punk rock love is getting your first kiss and almost losing your virginity at the same time, meanwhile you're trying not to wake up the other person sleeping in the same bed. Groping in the bushes by the freeway and later you realize that all the passing cars could see you. Exploring the wasteland together. holding hands out on the fire escape. Lying in the grass in her backyard. Lying on the astroturf in her bedroom. Drinking tequila on her porch, on your birthday. Riding on her motorcylce early in the cold morning and you're holding on tight and steam is rising off of the river and you're thinking how she is maybe even better than the Ramones. Punk rock love is both being broke. Love letters. Finding out she sang "Stay Free" at her high school talent show. Finding out she's a little crazier than you thought when you finally get her in bed. Her boyfriend getting mad. Walking around with her and her nephew and everyone giving you dirty looks cuz they think he's your kid. Walking around with her and being happy and proud. Being sad together. Being sad by yourself. Missing her.'
I wanted this book to transport me back to a time and place I only knew from stories from a girl I used to pour all my problems out to on the phone, usually drunk late at night in college, and who I would then listen to her tell me her stories too. I wanted to have one of those mythical places of punk be opened, a place that existed in my imagination from reading zines and listening to records. Minneapolis, mecca of crusty-anarcho punx, the home of the largest anarcho-punk zine Profane Existence, city of Destroy!, Misery, Assrash, a bazillion Dis- bands, Code 13, Quincy Punx, Felix Von Havoc, the mainline from America to the Swedish political bands, a place of cider and cheap beer, guns and rottweilers, Anti-Fascist Action, the city where the political punks forcibly removed the skinhead population and sent them packing to St. Paul......
[image error]
I've learned to be disappointed with books that deal with punk. I blame myself. My own experiences and what I defined punk as I realize aren't the norm. Back when I still identified myself through this silly label I'd get pissed off about scholarly works or novels that portrayed punk as a bunch of nihilistic drunk morons raging about fucking shit up. These were the type of kids that annoyed me, they were the types of kids who in my own 'scene' I annoyed and who would threaten to beat me up when they were with a lot of their friends (a side story. My senior year in college my friend Tony and I started a joke power-violence band (power-violence was a late 1980's creation out of California originally defined by bands like Infest and Crossed Out, in the mid 1990's a second wave of bands came headed by Spazz and Charles Bronson, very short and very fast songs, that in the second wave started to take on a weird level of humor). We enlisted the help of a few other people and wrote a bunch of songs all based around the ease that we could flail around, fall down, do posi-youth style jumps and act generally act like idiots with nonsensical lyrics and anthem style choruses. It was quite fun, but not everyone got the joke. The people who really didn't get the joke were punks, the leather jacket with stud wearing types who would try to unplug our amps, threaten us with bodily harm and intimidation. The funny thing was when the punks in groups would see me on the street after the show where they tried to stop us from playing they would continue their threats, but if I ran into one of the punk kids by themselves they would be sheepish, claim they thought it was fucked up what their friends had done, etc., Of course I knew they were lying because I had the whole show on video and I knew exactly who did what at the show, since it was a lot of fun showing the video to people I'd seen it quite a few times (I wish I still knew where the video was now, I'd love to share my idiocy with everyone on youtube)). I never understood this type of punk, the drunk, spikes wearing, mohawk spouting type. To me it was just another type of conformity. To me the whole appeal of punk was the community that it created that allowed for you to open up a space for yourself to question and express things. In the pre-internet days it allowed a forum to be dissatisfied and connect with other people. My punk reality was only a small sliver out of the whole world of what would pass as 'punk', most people I was friends with and kept in touch with didn't have mohawks, dressed more or less normally, weren't out breaking things on the street and pogoing at shows. I would confuse my own limited viewpoint as being what was true. I was wrong. Punk in general is stupid. For every Born Against and The Pist there are ten thousand Causalities and Blanks 77. Like everywhere else, the idiots rule.
For the punk parts of this book it does a good job capturing the stupid nihilism of angry kids doing moronic things. I knew people just like the characters here and yep that is them. It didn't capture the time of Minneapolis I was looking for, all of those things I mentioned above didn't even exist in this book. It made me realize that I'd forgotten that bands like The Replacements also came from there, and that most people would think of them when you put the words punk and Minneapolis in the same sentence. Opps, once again my limited viewpoint warps the way I expect the world to be.
This is so far a really alienating review I'm sure.
The book is partly about young punk love, and that is why I included the Cometbus piece called "Punk Love" above. It's sort of the classic on the subject, and it captures the idea better than all the pages in this book do.
This book is ok. It's fun at times and at other times it's kind of tiresome. The author seems a little too fixated on having his characters have sex, and when I look back at the 255 pages it seems like too many of them deal with sex, not that there is any explicit sex, but just kind of mentioning that they are going to have it, or how they look for places to have it. And too many other pages are filled with the characters doing Bukowskian levels of drinking and drugging but without them ever getting seriously fucked up. Sixteen year olds don't hold their liquor and drugs like these kids do. It's a little too sensational, or maybe I'm just a little too prudish and take offense at there being much mention of sex, drinking and drugs and blow it out of proportion because of my own limited viewpoint of chaste sobriety.
The really interesting plot devices aren't introduced until the last third of the book, and I kind of would have liked the author to have started to explore some of these elements earlier in the book. I can't say much about them here in this review because they would spoil the structure of the novel.
Like most punks, this book had it's heart in the right place but it's execution at times was about as futile as throwing glass bottles against the wall of a McDonalds.
December 24, 2008
wow. i did not like this. the story is basically: this teenage girl in minnesota is way into punk music. she's like maybe 15 years old. her parents don't understand her & her dark ways. they want her to be this cookie cutter middle american suburban teen, as far as she is concerned. she knows her mom has had a rough life that has culminated in a pretty intense mental illness history (she's had a few psychotic breaks & been in the mental hospital a few times, which makes it hard for the teenge girl to relate to her), but she still is just SO MISUNDERSTOOD. personally, i find all of this really bratty. & when the girl runs away from home to go live on the streets on minneapolis, i just wanted to find her & smack her. how selfish & self-defeating & childish. i mean, she brings her portable tape player. PLEASE. i remember being a teenager, i remember thinking my parents were just so out of touch & that all my angsty feelings were so unique to me, & it was all just so much bullshit. this book made me so glad that i am the parent of a teenger (yet). anyway, the girl makes the acquaintance of some other homeless teens & they end up squatting an abandoned cafe together. she seems to think that they have real little family going. she is all in love with one of them & they share a bed & are constantly doing the deed. have i mentioned that teen sex also freaks me out big-time? i just can't deal with teenagers who think they are in love. i pretty much can't deal with anyone under th age of about 26 thinking they are in love, & i'm sure that age will continue to rise as i get older. the girl doesn't call her family or do anything to let them know she is okay. & all the stress causes her mom to have all these psychotic episodes & her parents' marriage starts to crumble. nice one. the whole time i was reading this book, i was like, "wow, this book fucking SUCKS. but as long as the mom doesn't have these psychotic breaks due to some sort of past history with herself or a loved one being raped & killed, i can tolerate it." & then guess what happens? yup, the big reveal: the mom's sister was raped & killed on her way home from a football game one night. FUCK YOU, JOSHUA FURST. seriously, FUCK YOU. women being raped & killed isn't just amusing fodder that you can drop into your shitty books to give your characters emotional depth. FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU. HATE THIS BOOK.
December 9, 2013
"Sabotage Cafe," by Joshua Furst, was a fluke find for me at a used bookstore. Surprisingly, it ended up being one of my favorite reads this year.
I am a sucker for coming of age tales. Especially those that explore angst ridden issues like drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, and general self destruction. What can i say, I'm a happy go lucky girl.
Not only did "Sabotage Cafe" hit on all my favorite tragic topics it was set in Minneapolis MN, a city I used to live in. I was delighted to find the author referencing some of my favorite hang out spots in a city, I still to this day, have mixed feelings about.
Furst's portrayal of Minneapolis is fairly gritty, concentrating on the core metro area and the "gutter punk" population in particular. My own recollection of Minneapolis is fairly similar. I admit if I had not lived in this area myself I would think the culture described in "Sabotage Cafe" an exaggeration of this Midwestern city. However, during my, "years served," living in Uptown Minneapolis I was in close proximity to many of the punk rock preteens, teens, and twenty something types described in this novel.
These types hung around places like Liquor Lyles, The Red Dragon, and of course, the CC Club, (actually mentioned as a hangout for some of the less desirable characters in this book, which made me wonder why the hell I was hanging out at this particular establishment so much.) These types loitered in packs wasting endless hours while chain smoking and looking tough with their wallet chains and tiny leather moto jackets covered in homemade patches.
They would often ride those welded together trashed out double decker bikes around the neighborhood. I still to this day have no idea how they stopped and balanced on them! Every time I yelled the question, "How do you balance when you stop!? I would get back a stony glare of indifference. "Sabotage Cafe," gave me and idea of what may have been a common story behind that glare. It also made me reflect on a time when all I considered those kids to be was hardcore...not lost, not hungry, and certainly not victims. They were just bad ass kids I shared my bars with.
What a difference ten years makes in perspective.
I am a sucker for coming of age tales. Especially those that explore angst ridden issues like drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, and general self destruction. What can i say, I'm a happy go lucky girl.
Not only did "Sabotage Cafe" hit on all my favorite tragic topics it was set in Minneapolis MN, a city I used to live in. I was delighted to find the author referencing some of my favorite hang out spots in a city, I still to this day, have mixed feelings about.
Furst's portrayal of Minneapolis is fairly gritty, concentrating on the core metro area and the "gutter punk" population in particular. My own recollection of Minneapolis is fairly similar. I admit if I had not lived in this area myself I would think the culture described in "Sabotage Cafe" an exaggeration of this Midwestern city. However, during my, "years served," living in Uptown Minneapolis I was in close proximity to many of the punk rock preteens, teens, and twenty something types described in this novel.
These types hung around places like Liquor Lyles, The Red Dragon, and of course, the CC Club, (actually mentioned as a hangout for some of the less desirable characters in this book, which made me wonder why the hell I was hanging out at this particular establishment so much.) These types loitered in packs wasting endless hours while chain smoking and looking tough with their wallet chains and tiny leather moto jackets covered in homemade patches.
They would often ride those welded together trashed out double decker bikes around the neighborhood. I still to this day have no idea how they stopped and balanced on them! Every time I yelled the question, "How do you balance when you stop!? I would get back a stony glare of indifference. "Sabotage Cafe," gave me and idea of what may have been a common story behind that glare. It also made me reflect on a time when all I considered those kids to be was hardcore...not lost, not hungry, and certainly not victims. They were just bad ass kids I shared my bars with.
What a difference ten years makes in perspective.
January 17, 2020
One thing that I’ve found with Furst’s style is that he tries his best to “cut the to the chase,” but he also goes off far from the camp and some of his work becomes a long footnote. This book could have used a condenser, but it still held authority throughout and left me satisfied.
The narrative is first-person omniscient, and that’s not an easy thing to pull off. At times, we’re left to wonder if her character prose is conjecture or if there’s an element we’re missing, soon to be discovered. In this case, the latter is true and you’ll have to be a patient reader to find fabled treasure that seems to be promised, but only inferred.
The narrative is first-person omniscient, and that’s not an easy thing to pull off. At times, we’re left to wonder if her character prose is conjecture or if there’s an element we’re missing, soon to be discovered. In this case, the latter is true and you’ll have to be a patient reader to find fabled treasure that seems to be promised, but only inferred.
May 20, 2008
This book's flap says it's about the 1980 Mpls punk scene. But it's mostly about a woman who was part of it who's now a suburban mom, and her teenage daughter runs away to the city and become a crusty. It was okay, but the dude author does not get teenage girl sexuality down at all, and it woulda been cooler if it was about the 80s.
Read
March 6, 2009I read a positive review a while back, picked it up, and realized that it was (very loosely) based on the cafe I used to hang out at back in my Minneapolis days. On the whole, it was solid. I especially liked the rather poignant description from an unreliable mother-narrator. And it conveys the feeling of the gutter margins of civilization in the middle of a post-industrial city that, again, reminds me of being 20 years old in Minneapolis. There's something missing, though... a sense of cohesion, I guess. There's a great deal of sorrow and loss, but no conclusion. While I'm glad Furst didn't give us any easy answers, I wouldn't have minded some additional material to give some grounding, and at least resolve some of the questions. He's a good enough writer I could happily have continued on with this one for a while.
January 30, 2008
I read through this book very quickly. It is a very entertaining read. The narrator is of particular curiosity and can be both jolting and revealing. I like the idea of a unreliable narrator as this one surely is, more then I've often seen. It adds a lot of levels to what could have otherwise been a a slightly typical teenage rebellion motif. I'd actually like to read through this book again at a later date and see if I get any new insights into what is actually happening and what is maybe being imagined by the narrator. It got really fuzzy at the end for me. The character's in the story are full and people who I'm sure we can relate to people we knew in our own adolecence. I certainly can...and actually some now...enjoy this one!
December 2, 2009
Beautifully written, this is the story of a runaway girl told from both the mother’s and daughter’s perspective simultaneously. This blending of narrators is very magical; it goes back and forth between 3rd person omniscient to 1st person, as if the mother somehow knew where her runaway daughter was, what she was doing & thinking. At first, I assume she does know–I assume they were reunited later, and she has the full story. Later, I realized it was not that simple. Nor were the reasons for running away simple.
June 15, 2008
this book is like a writing experiment gone wrong. it's the story of a 15 year old run away, from the perspective of her schizophrenic mother. i picked it up at the library because it was supposedly set in minneapolis during the 80's punk scene. not so much.
July 16, 2008
Hmm, I'd give this 2 1/2 if the 1/2 were available. It is cliche beyond belief and just silly. For anyone that hung with gutter punks in their younger, stupider days you will hearken back to those days of yore. All set in Minneapolis scene so I could recognize the places around U of M.
June 8, 2009
Furst's ability to craft a realistic female voice is to be commended; I just didn't really like the women enough to care that much about them.
June 30, 2008
Author takes a big risk with the unique narration, but it pays off. Loved this book.
July 9, 2008
this made me sad. also slightly too much teenage sex.
August 22, 2008
electric, intense, and powerfully gritty...a must read for parents and teenagers
August 20, 2008
"People arrive in your life and then disappear, and with every leaving, a little bit more of you goes away with them."
April 13, 2008
About a runaway teen, her schizophrenic mother, drugs, sex, consumerism, anarchy, and posers.
May 14, 2019
I think the unreliable narrator device was used to very good effect. In addition Furst handled mental illness in a rather matter of fact way mostly showing it through the view of the mentally ill mom. I actually read this because of another book I sought by Furst, a more recent work. This I mention because when reading reviews, none seem to be newer than 5 years ago. Reviewers thought there was way too much teen-aged sex and there surely was lots of it. The teen characters were rather unhinged, troubled soles and the sex seemed a part of that, not glorified but more symtomatic of them. Fact is that most of these characters are not really likable.
September 18, 2023
This book was beautifully written, and where it lacked in a strong story line, it made up for it with really heart felt prose. In short, it's about a mentally ill mother's descent into madness as she imagines the daily activities of her teenage run away daughter who is residing in the same squat houses the mother did in her own youth.
It's a great read for folks that appreciate punk music and culture, and difficult to read at times (there are a few gruesome scenes and no shortage of teenage abuse).
It's a great read for folks that appreciate punk music and culture, and difficult to read at times (there are a few gruesome scenes and no shortage of teenage abuse).
September 1, 2019
This gets points for the unusual narrative point of view (you'll see), but I didn't feel much for the characters.
May 25, 2020
Did not love this book. It was on my TBR list for many years, never available from library, so I asked for it for a gift. Wondering how it got on my list to read.
April 16, 2017
DO NOT READ
July 27, 2012
I really enjoyed this book and couldn't put it down. He does something interesting with the POV, and you have to figure out what is reality. That said, I'm also fascinated with street kids and gutter punks. I would have liked to see more day to day detail regarding the life of a street kid, but that would have been a different story.
Addition: I'm reading the reviews and I just wanted to say that this book is as much about schizophrenia as it is a teenage runaway. It utilizes the technique of unreliable narrator and if you think about it, this is clear from the first couple of chapters. So the end is not a cop out, but is really the only way the novel could have ended (so it is predictable in that respect). Of course, the mother wasn't really in tune with what the daughter was doing. She in no way was psychic. That was made very clear when the narrator talked about the voices and how people would come to her with their problems from behind walls and across the street.
Also yes the sister was raped and killed. The daughter ran away and disappeared. The daughter had a lot of the sister in her. What do you think a very possible connection between the two could be?
I can see where readers may not have bargained for this type of unreliable narrator experience, and that may have been the problem. But if you were reading carefully, you could have figured this out.
One more thing: there is a horrible scene regarding the death of a dog, and while I understand what the author was trying to do, this could have been left out. I actually skipped most of this part because it made me literally sick.
Addition: I'm reading the reviews and I just wanted to say that this book is as much about schizophrenia as it is a teenage runaway. It utilizes the technique of unreliable narrator and if you think about it, this is clear from the first couple of chapters. So the end is not a cop out, but is really the only way the novel could have ended (so it is predictable in that respect). Of course, the mother wasn't really in tune with what the daughter was doing. She in no way was psychic. That was made very clear when the narrator talked about the voices and how people would come to her with their problems from behind walls and across the street.
Also yes the sister was raped and killed. The daughter ran away and disappeared. The daughter had a lot of the sister in her. What do you think a very possible connection between the two could be?
I can see where readers may not have bargained for this type of unreliable narrator experience, and that may have been the problem. But if you were reading carefully, you could have figured this out.
One more thing: there is a horrible scene regarding the death of a dog, and while I understand what the author was trying to do, this could have been left out. I actually skipped most of this part because it made me literally sick.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 17, 2009
SPOILER ALERT
I'm breaking my rule to only list books I *recommend* because I'm royally pissed about this book. I can't believe he resorted to the old "it was only a dream" adolescent crutch.
The story of a runaway teen hanging with an anarchist crowd as told by her mother, who gives new meaning to the convention of the undependable narrator. She's basically mentally ill and envisions what's happened to her daughter, though we have reason to believe the daughter has called her and that she's deeply in tune to her experience.
Until the end when we learn it was all in her head. Yep. The daughter ran off and that was that, forever and ever amen.
That was utterly cruel and there were numerous other, more satisfying ways to end what was a difficult, often grim book to read. He's a great writer, so I hung in there only to be bitterly disappointed and ripped off.
This EXACTLY is what gives literary fiction a bad name among the plebian commercial fiction crowd. "Ha, ha, jokes on you. This wasn't a real story, this was a bout of mental masturbation and I dragged you in as a voyeur. Life is pointless, mean and dirty, tra la, tra la.
No thanks, Mr. Furst. I read fiction for alternatives to reality, not to have my nose rubbed in it.
I'm breaking my rule to only list books I *recommend* because I'm royally pissed about this book. I can't believe he resorted to the old "it was only a dream" adolescent crutch.
The story of a runaway teen hanging with an anarchist crowd as told by her mother, who gives new meaning to the convention of the undependable narrator. She's basically mentally ill and envisions what's happened to her daughter, though we have reason to believe the daughter has called her and that she's deeply in tune to her experience.
Until the end when we learn it was all in her head. Yep. The daughter ran off and that was that, forever and ever amen.
That was utterly cruel and there were numerous other, more satisfying ways to end what was a difficult, often grim book to read. He's a great writer, so I hung in there only to be bitterly disappointed and ripped off.
This EXACTLY is what gives literary fiction a bad name among the plebian commercial fiction crowd. "Ha, ha, jokes on you. This wasn't a real story, this was a bout of mental masturbation and I dragged you in as a voyeur. Life is pointless, mean and dirty, tra la, tra la.
No thanks, Mr. Furst. I read fiction for alternatives to reality, not to have my nose rubbed in it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 29, 2008
"People arrive in your life and then disappear, and with every leaving, a little bit more of you goes away with them."
This book was very inventive, especially in regards to the manner in which it is narrated. It was not a happy book, or emotional easy to read, but extremely affecting. It touches on many simple truths within peoples relationships and what individuals need to tell themselves to make it through each day, which is one of my favorite experiences in reading.
"The Sabotage Cafe" fleshes out a complicated mother/daughter relationship and also focuses on how people can be completely self-involved and how that affects how we view ourselves and compromise ourselves to connect with other people. It also deals with mental illness in a fresh manner in both how the person who is sick sees themselves and how the people in their lives must react to it and deal with it.
Both of the female characters were fully developed and incredibly realistic and relatable which really shows the skill of the author since as a man he completely inhabited the insecurities of a teenage girl.
This book was very inventive, especially in regards to the manner in which it is narrated. It was not a happy book, or emotional easy to read, but extremely affecting. It touches on many simple truths within peoples relationships and what individuals need to tell themselves to make it through each day, which is one of my favorite experiences in reading.
"The Sabotage Cafe" fleshes out a complicated mother/daughter relationship and also focuses on how people can be completely self-involved and how that affects how we view ourselves and compromise ourselves to connect with other people. It also deals with mental illness in a fresh manner in both how the person who is sick sees themselves and how the people in their lives must react to it and deal with it.
Both of the female characters were fully developed and incredibly realistic and relatable which really shows the skill of the author since as a man he completely inhabited the insecurities of a teenage girl.
September 20, 2008
I bought this book based on a recommendation from our local independent bookstore, it's numerous glowing reviews, and on the fact that it was set in Minneapolis, my home town. I had high expectations, which may have been unfair. It is narrated by a mother, who is searching for her runaway adolescent daughter. Once upon a time, the mother was a rebellious youth. The daughter is following in her mother's footsteps to some degree - hanging out in her old haunts and running around with similar sketchy characters. I found the dialogue realistic and the descriptions of Minneapolis sound, but I never really attached to any of the characters - some felt thin. The mother's character had possibilities - but I felt she was too underdeveloped to sympathize with. The daughter's character made me worry about what my own high school-age sister might do someday - maybe the book was effective in that way.
July 19, 2016
A unique narrative voice drives this book, a book about homeless runaways in the Twin Cities, or perhaps, a book about mental illness and living one's life through a sister, or a daughter. A fast, compelling read but ultimately a painful, and in important ways, dishonest, one. Because reality isn't always real, and that is likely to be a problem for some readers - this reader being on the fence. Recommended, with significant reservations.
September 6, 2007
Furst uses an unusual point of view for his novel set in Minneapolis, about a teenage runaway and her schizophrenic mother. It works though.
I was a little wary at the end because I had a writing teacher who once said, "if your story would disappear if only your main character would take their medicine then you really really don't have a story" and yet Furst still pulls it off.
I was a little wary at the end because I had a writing teacher who once said, "if your story would disappear if only your main character would take their medicine then you really really don't have a story" and yet Furst still pulls it off.
October 31, 2007
A good weekend read. This book is about the relationship between a mentally damaged mother and the punk/alternative daughter who rejects her by running away. It's an original story. The plot mostly focuses on a confused teen who doesn't want to become her mother, but who is losing herself in a world on boys, drugs, and alcohol while she lives in an abandoned building.
February 22, 2012
I wanted to be able to rave about this book--and there were times when I loved the prose and the characters. That said, I leave the story completely dissatisfied: the plot is completely unresolved as we're left to wonder if the narrator's story about her daughter is real or just an utter fabrication.
October 1, 2010
The Sabotage Cafe was an interesting premise, but I didn't thing it completely succeeded. Life in the squat was nicely portrayed, though the characters are pretty unlikeable. But it was frustrating to have it end with out key plot lines resolved and I felt it sort of petered out.
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