How Soon Is Never?: A Novel
by Marc Spitz
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Book Summary Information
Author: Marc SpitzEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-09-23
ISBN: 0609810405
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Book Reviews of How Soon Is Never?: A Novel
Book Review: tragically true
Summary: 5 Stars
After finishing this book I think that I'm a pretty horrible kid. I picked it up because I'm a spin reader, and after reading marc Spitz's interview with himself I found it wonderfully cheeky that someone would package their life up as fiction for the sake of taking fabulous exaggerations and cruel observations. Similarly, I thought the picture of the two Spitzes talking to eachother in that october '03 issue, kind of neat. Anyway. On to my roundabout point, one of the central themes to this utterly addictive saga is the favorite subject of many a music junkie; though covered with layers of drugs and jealousy, the main conflict is the connection that one feels to their favorite band. Not a normal connection, a strange one, the kind when the songs never get old; you can't accomplish anything with their records on because you know the music too well, you find yourself thinking about every aspect of your daily life in reference to them without realizing it, You have to seriosly consider if in the event of an emergency wether you'd save you mother, or their records. (you decide on the autographed record and the mother only because neither is replaceable)
I think that because Spitz is a music junkie it allows him to write from his own "life" with less of a degree of cheek than i'd forseen; mostly with honesty and a frightneing sense of devotion. This book is something to be feared, admired, envied, and most importantly read. I would recommend it to anyone who knows an obsessive music fan, even mothers of obsessed music fans, just so they can begin to understand what exactly is running through their children's minds.
This is it. This is your brain on the smiths.
However, I'm 14. I don't deserve this book. I'm too young to deserve this book. I read it for I felt that I was an old soul, but now? I wonder why I haven't found any band worth obsessing over. I'm worried that by the time they're here I'll be too old; or that they'll never come. Until then I have my guilt-trip, illegally downloaded, smiths collection. My dark rooms. My sunglasses. My woe. my teenagerdom that began tragically late. This book showed me that the smiths cannot be mine. I will try to have them, but indefinitely will fail.
Summary of How Soon Is Never?: A Novel
There is a light and it never goes out . . . or is there?Welcome to the big Reagan ?80s, where ketchup is a vegetable and the Cold War looms large and chilly. If like Joe Green you were coming of age during this boom era, your main concerns include one or more of the following: a rainbow assortment of Polo shirts worn with the collar flipped up, K-Swiss tennis shoes, a new cable channel called MTV, and Top 40 radio. Stuck in the suburban haze of Long Island, New York, Joe Green knows there has got to be more to life.
However, salvation is on the way, in the form of a quiffed-up quartet from Manchester, England, who take over the airways of a local radio station. Hearing the Smiths for the first time jerks Joe awake: Morrissey?s wry and witty lyrics speak to him, and Johnny Marr?s driven guitar chords get under his skin. He destroys his Phil Collins cassettes, pomades his hair into New Wave submission, studies up on his Oscar Wilde, and falls in love. He even shows up for dinner on time. That is, until his favorite band breaks up and then breaks his heart.
Fast-forward some fifteen years. Joe Green is making a living as a rock journalist, still recovering from a wicked post-college smack addiction and slumming with youngsters who ironically ?appreciate? the seminal ?80s music that once gave his life meaning. It?s too late to go home, or is it?
What if Joe Green can get the Smiths back together? What if reuniting the long-broken-up band can reverse the passage of time and bring back the magic of youth? What if it helps him win the heart of the woman he loves?
How Soon Is Never? is an acerbic, ingenious look at Reagan-era adolescence, the power of hearing a record that changes your life, and the dangers of nostalgia.
Be prepared to see a bit of yourself in Joe Green.
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