Hairstyles of the Damned

By Joe Meno

The debut novel from Akashic's new imprint, Punk Planet Books. Also check out the smash hits How the Hula Girl Sings, Tender as Hellfire, and The Boy Detective Fails.
"A funny, hard-rocking first-person tale of teenage angst and discovery." —Booklist
"Captures the loose, fun, recklessness of midwestern punk." —MTV.com
Hairstyles of the Damned is an honest, true-life depiction of growing up punk on Chicago's south side: a study in the demons of racial intolerance, Catholic school conformism, and class repression. It is the story of the riotous exploits of Brian, a high school burnout, and his best friend, Gretchen, a punk rock girl fond of brawling. Based on the actual events surrounding a Chicago high school's segregated prom, this work of fiction unflinchingly pursues the truth in discovering what it means to be your own person.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Akashic Books
• Release date: Sep 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9781936070299

Joe Meno

Joe Meno is a fiction writer and playwright who lives in Chicago. He is a winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Great Lakes Book Award, and was a finalist for the Story Prize. He is the author of five novels and two short story collections including The Great Perhaps, The Boy Detective Fails, Demons in the Spring, and Hairstyles of the Damned. His short fiction has been published in One Story, McSweeney's, Swink, LIT, TriQuarterly, Other Voices, Gulf Coast, and broadcast on NPR. His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times and Chicago magazine. His stage plays have been produced in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Charville, France. He is an associate professor in the fiction writing department at Columbia College Chicago.

Book preview

acknowledgments

You rock it: Koren #1 favorite wife of all time, Dan Sinker, Mark Zambo, Meghan Lee, Jimmy Vickery, Jake Silker, Chad Rasner, Meg Stielstra, Lott Hill, Todd Dills, Jim Munroe, Jon Resh, Mike Coleman, Joe Tower, Joe Denk, Meredith Stone, Jenny Norton, Sarah K., Nick Novosel, the cast and crew of Haunted Trails, Brian Peterson at the Fireside Bowl, Quimby’s Bookstore, The Alley Chicago, Charles Everitt, Jenny Bent, Johnny Temple, my family, folks I met through the Phantom Three, Our Missles Are:, Sleepwalk magazine, Go Cougars, Bail magazine, Punk Planet magazine, the all-powerful Columbia College Fiction Writing Department, the Chicago Tribune, and the always supportive New City.

You suck it: Judith Regan. Badly. And all you other bad publishing corporations. Be ready, the end is nigh.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Page

acknowledgments

american nightmare

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

twelve

thirteen

fourteen

fifteen

sixteen

seventeen

eighteen

nineteen

twenty

twenty one

twenty two

twenty three

twenty four

twenty five

twenty six

twenty seven

twenty eight

twenty nine

thirty

thirty one

thirty two

thirty three

thirty four

thirty five

I was a teenage teen

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

twelve

thirteen

fourteen

fifteen

sixteen

seventeen

eighteen

nineteen

twenty

twenty one

twenty two

twenty three

the album that saved my life

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

twelve

thirteen

fourteen

fifteen

sixteen

seventeen

eighteen

nineteen

twenty

halloween night

E-Book Extras

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Akashic Books/Punk Planet Books

©2004 Joe Meno

Punk Planet Books is a division of Independents’ Day Media.

Photographs by Laurent Yen

Model: Meghan Galbraith

Book design by Pirate Signal International

ePub ISBN 13: 978-1-936-07029-9

ISBN: 1-888451-70-X

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004106233

All rights reserved

Akashic Books Punk Planet Books

PO Box 1456 4229 N. Honore

New York, NY 10009 Chicago, IL 60613

[e-mail] [e-mail]

www.akashicbooks.com www.punkplanetbooks.com

american nightmare

october 1990

Whoa, oh, oh oh, sweet child of mine

—Sweet Child o’ Mine

Axl Rose, Guns n’ Roses

Your penis is king

—Graffiti in a high school boy’s bathroom

The sun shines out of our behinds

—Hand in Glove

Morrissey, The Smiths

one

The other problem I had was that I was falling in love with my best friend, Gretchen, who I thought the rest of the world considered fat. We were in her crappy car and singing, and at the end of the song White Riot, the one by the Clash, I realized by the way I was watching her mouth pucker and smile and her eyes blink and wink, we were way more than friends, at least to me. I looked over at Gretchen driving and she was starting to sing the next song, Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? by the Clash again, and I said, I love driving around with you, Gretchen, but because the radio was so loud all she could do was see my mouth move.

It was a Tuesday around four in the afternoon, the first semester of our junior year in high school, and neither one of us had anything to do, because Gretchen had just recently been fired from the Cinnabon at the mall for flipping off a female customer when she asked for more icing, and I wasn’t allowed to work because my mother was very overprotective of me and insisted that I only focus on studying. I yelled something to Gretchen again and she nodded at me and then turned her head back to drive and kept on singing and I guess I looked over at her, at her short blondish-pink hair—some of it hanging in her face, some tucked behind her ear, some dyed brighter pink than the rest—and I watched the way her mouth moved again and I noticed she didn’t ever wear lipstick and it was one of the reasons I think I liked her; and also I smiled at how she was holding her small white hands on the steering wheel very seriously, like she was a new driver, which she was not, because she was seventeen and had been driving way before she had gotten her license last year. I also looked at her breasts; I looked at them and they were big, very big, more than I knew what to do with, and I guess the truth of the matter was they were big because she was fat, and it didn’t matter to me then, not the way it would if I was like hanging out with Bobby B. or some other guy at the mall, and he’d be like, Check out that porker, and I’d be like, Yeah, and then I’d laugh. Gretchen was fat, I mean not like obese, but she was definitely big, not her face so much, but her middle and behind.

Worse than that, she was known for kicking other girls’ asses on a regular basis. It was not very cool. There was the awful hair-pulling incident with Polly Winchensky. There was the enormous black eye she gave Lisa Hensel. There was the time Gretchen broke Amy Schaffer’s arm at a Halloween party—you know, when Amy Schaffer had rolled her eyes at Gretchen’s costume, when she came as JFK post-assassination, with the black suit and blood and bullet holes, and Amy Schaffer said, You really do look like a man, and Gretchen just turned and grabbed Amy Schaffer’s arm and twisted it so hard behind her back that Amy Schaffer’s school drama days were ended right there, just like that, so that poor Amy Schaffer had to go around for the next two years milking sympathy, like a fucking martyr wearing her aircast everywhere, long after it could have possibly been needed for anything recuperative.

Also, well, also Gretchen wasn’t the most feminine girl in the world, sincerely. She swore a lot and only listened to punk, like the Misfits and the Ramones and the Descendents, especially when we were in the car, because, although it had a decent stereo for a Ford Escort, there was a tape that had been stuck in the cassette player for about a year now and most of the time that was all it would play, and you had to jab the tape with a pen or nail file to get it to start, and the tape was the same handpicked mix Gretchen had thought was cool a year ago, which according to the label on the tape was what she had called White Protest Rock, version II.

Gretchen’s mix-tapes, her music choices, were like these songs that seemed to be all about our lives, but in small random ways that made sense on almost any occasion. Like Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? Maybe it meant I should tell Gretchen how I was feeling. Or maybe it meant I should just go home. To me, the tapes were what made me like her, then love her so much: the fact that in between the Misfits and the Specials, she would have a song from the Mamas and the Papas, Dream a Little Dream of Me or something like that. Those mix-tapes were the secret soundtrack to how I was feeling or what I thought about almost everything.

Also—and I don’t know if I should mention this or not—Gretchen always called other people, even our friends, douche-bags or douche-holes or cunts or cunt-holes or cunt-teasers or cuntwads or cunt-heads or even cunt-asses, which doesn’t even make sense when you think about it, things like that. The way she swore amazed me and again, it probably made me like her a lot more than any other girl I had ever met because she didn’t ever seem to mind hanging out with me.

OK, so the thing of it was, the Homecoming Dance was like in three weeks and I hadn’t asked anyone and I wanted to ask Gretchen, but I hadn’t for good reasons: one, I didn’t want her to know I liked-her-liked-her; two, I knew she liked Tony Degan, this white power dude; and also—and this is the worst thing so I hate to admit it—but well, I didn’t want the photographs. You know how they make you take your picture and everything? I didn’t want photographs of me at Homecoming with a fat girl so that in fifty years I’d have to be reminded of what a loser I was because, well, I hoped things in the future were going to change for me.

Do you want to go get something to eat? Gretchen asked. I am fucking starving, because I don’t know if you noticed or not, but I’m a big fat cow.

Whatever, I said, turning the radio down so we could talk. Where do you want to go eat? Haunted Trails?

Haunted Trails was on 79th Street, this monster-movie-themed miniature golf course and video arcade, really the only place we or any of the other stoners and punks hung out. No, wait, forget it, she said. "All those kids’ll be there and I look so gross. I’m supposed to be on this diet where I only eat white foods, it’s like racist or something. Seriously. I am disgusted with myself, you know? I practically am a boy. Look at me. I practically have chest hair. I could join the football team or something."

Shut up, I said. You just said that so I’d say how you look OK, so I’m not even saying it.

Oh, you figured me out, douche-bag. No, I mean it, look at me:I’m practically a boy; I practically have a dick. And as she slowed the crappy blue Escort to a stop at the next light, she bunched the front of her jeans up so it looked like she had an erection. Look, look, my god, I have an erection! I’ve got blue balls! Oh, they hurt! I need help!Give me some porn, hurry! Come on, let’s go rape some cheerleaders!Oh, they hurt!

I laughed, looking away.

Forget it, though, seriously. I am so disgusted with myself. Hey, did I tell you that I’m in love with Tony Degan again?

What? I asked. Why don’t you forget him? He’s like fucking twenty-six. And a white power asshole. And, I dunno, that should be enough.

I’m not really in love with him. I’d just like for him to totally devirginize me.

What?

You know, just have some meathead who doesn’t give a shit about you, just get it over with, you know, so you wouldn’t have to talk to him ever again? That way, it wouldn’t be like uncomfortable afterwards.

Yeah, I could see how being like raped by some white power dude wouldn’t be uncomfortable.

Exactly, she said. That’s why you’re like my best girlfriend.

Gretchen, you know I’m not a girl, right?

I know, but if I think of you as a guy, then I have to worry about what I eat in front of you.

But I don’t care how you look, I said, and I knew I was lying.

two

i am in love with a white power thug . tony degan. tony degan, you’re all i can think of. i know you’re a burnout. i know you’re a racist jag-off. but i can’t stop thinking about you. the way you smile , like you’re already unsnapping my bra, i don’t know, you’re all i think about . you make me feel ok. you make me feel less lonely. i think about you and i know i’ll never be lonely. no one’s going to make me feel gross . no one’s ever going to call me fatty again. tony degan. tony degan. the next time . the next time i’m alone with you i’m going to let you do it. i’m gonna let you do anything you want to do.

three

At the video arcade later, Gretchen was crying. It was something I’d never seen before in my life. What’s wrong? I asked. I was in the middle of a high-scoring game of Phantom Racer and not really listening. I turned and saw her cheeks were pink and shiny with tears, and she was biting her bottom lip to keep from sobbing. She had on her black hoodie and in the light it looked like her bright pink hair was washing away to white-blond again. I hate to say it, but thinking about it now, standing there with her arms crossed and looking sad, looking down, with the flashing lights from Galaga and Bonn Scott from the great AC/DC wailing about TNT through the arcade speakers, all of it mixing in with the click, click of the air hockey machine and the blips and buzzes and outer space noises from the other video games, well, I dunno, she looked really gentle standing there. Real pretty.

Tony Degan asked me to go for a ride with him, she finally said.

So? I said, looking back at the blinking screen.

So, I didn’t.

So?

So, I just saw some fucking skank making out with him.

So? Big deal. I shrugged my shoulders and zoomed past a stalled-out race car, downshifting to regain speed, but two red-eyed pixilated demons lurched into my path. I looked over and Gretchen was gone. In a moment then, from the parking lot outside, I could hear someone let out a scream. I finished that level and watched as my score was totaled. Some dick with the name RAD1 had blown all of my old scores and it seemed pretty pointless to even try for first place, because RAD1 had to be some retarded video game genius who worked for the video game company, you know, kind of like The Who’s Tommy? I mean, who scores 1,500,200 points anyways? Retarded video game playing geniuses. I dunno. I heard the scream from the parking lot again and since my score wasn’t shit, I just turned and walked away.

Outside, it was very bright in the daylight and also very quiet. I had to cover my eyes to let them adjust to the sun, which was just starting to go down. It was around five o’clock. Outside, the Haunted Trails Miniature Golf and Amusement Arcade was pretty much empty. There were all the usual weird horror-themed miniature golf obstacles—the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Hole 3, the green monster rising out of the middle of a blue-green swamp, a coffin with a crappy plastic mechanical hand that rose and fell sporadically, dancing skeletons that you had to putt past—but no one was really around. Some dad and his two little girls were arriving at Hole 8, which was a big wooden haunted castle, in which you had to hit the ball through the drawbridge. The dad was lining up his shot; he had a shiny black patch over his left eye. They all looked like they had been in some kind of accident. Both of the little girls had bandages on their faces and one had a broken arm. It made me wonder for a minute. Then one of the girls kicked a blue golf ball with the tip of her shoe into the hole and they all laughed. Everything is good when your dad bothers to be around, I thought to myself. Across from the miniature golf course, some overweight jocks were hitting balls in the fast pitch batting cages. One guy had on an American flag baseball hat and a T-shirt that said One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor. He knocked the hell out of an inside pitch and shouted, He shoots, he scores! and I decided I did not like that. Across from the batting cages, a Mexican guy was selling hairy-looking hot dogs at the Spooky Snack Shop. There were exactly two fat kids speeding along on the go-cart drag way behind that; they were twins in yellow paper birthday hats. They both had the same joyful expression on their round, tubby faces and I thought how nice it would be to be a kid again. But not fat. At the gates, there was the giant plastic Frankenstein statue rising up to the sky, brandishing his axe. His expression seemed to say, Yes, I am just as lonely up here. I waved to him and walked around back.

I lit up a cigarette and looked across the parking lot to where all the stoners hung out. I was trying smoking—what the hell, everyone else did it. I sucked in a mouthful and coughed like a war veteran, then flicked the cigarette behind me, doing my best strut across the parking lot. At the end of the lot there were two or three cool-looking cars: a rebuilt blue metallic-flake Nova, an Impala which was rusty but still sweet, and two decent-looking vans. The guys with the best mustaches and the best cars all hung out in the parking lot. They were kids who were still in high school but because of their fine mustaches and fine cars got some pussy and looked old enough to buy beer. Also, there were older guys like Tony Degan, who had to be like twenty-six but still hung out with high school kids, you know, to sell them dope and talk shit and to try and get some teenage trim. Tony did well, mostly because he was older and knew what to do to get a girl to believe whatever it was he was saying with lines like, Hey, I really feel like I can open up with you, while jamming his hand down the poor girl’s pants. Or so I had heard anyway.

As I got closer to the lot, I saw Bobby B.’s purple wizard van and he and Tony Degan were standing in front of it, leaning against the hood, laughing. Bobby B. was a kid from my street, a senior, a year older than me, with long black hair, gold sunglasses, and acid-washed jeans. He would sit out in his garage all night, smoking and drinking and trying to get the goddamn starter on his van to fire. The van, a ’77 Dodge, looked good—it was bright purple and had this magnificent wizard airbrushed on one side of it—but it ran like shit. But it was still a van, his van, a good-looking wizard van. Sitting in the glove compartment, Bobby B. always had about five pairs of girls’ underwear, from girls he had made it with. He called it his trophy case. I would open the glove box and the panties would all seem to sing a hymn to me—Hallelujah!—glowing with golden light. Also, with much gratitude, I must mention Bobby B. was the one who had turned me on to AC/DC when he loaned me High Voltage in eighth grade. For that, I would be eternally grateful.

Beside Bobby B. was Tony Degan, who, on the other hand was, like I said, maybe twenty-five, twenty-six, tall but lanky, wearing a yellow T-shirt that said, My grandparents went to the Bahamas and all I got was this stupid T-shirt. He was smoking and nodding and shaking his head. That was what he did: nodded to himself and smiled, like there was a joke about you that you weren’t really getting. He looked high most of the time—maybe he was, I dunno. He had blond hair, which was longer in back, combed-up with grease of some kind, and two black wristbands just above his hands, though he wasn’t a jock or in a band, but he had that look, like 1-2-3, he could kick your ass.

As soon as I made it around the corner, I heard the scream again and saw Gretchen holding some girl I didn’t know in a headlock. Like always, Gretchen was winning. The other girl’s eyes were big and bugged-out with panic. She was very skinny and very slutty-looking. She had on spiderweb nylons, which were torn, and a black jean jacket with a huge Megadeth patch. She was on her knees and having a hard time breathing. Drool was pouring over Gretchen’s forearm and onto the cement. It was not very cool.

Dude, what’s the malfunction here? I asked.

Brian Oswald, what’s up with you, dude? Bobby B. asked with a nod. He had a nice mustache coming in: thin, but it extended around his narrow lips all the way down to his chin, biker-style. I had been trying for months to grow a mustache but there was nothing; not anything: no stubble, no shadow, not anything. I was a junior in high school who still looked like a junior-high kid. So what’s fucking going on? Bobby B. asked again, slapping my hand.

You know, nothing, I said.

You break that high score on Phantom Racer yet? he asked.

Not yet.

Fuck. They must have some fucking expert come in and reset it every week.

Yeah, I said. So what’s the deal here?

With an amazing thud, Gretchen slammed the girl’s head off the side of a parked LeBaron. Ohhhhhh, everyone moaned.

Fucking chicks, Bobby B. said.

Yeah, I said. Chicks. I turned to Gretchen and shouted, Dude, Gretchen, fucking relax.

Like always, she just ignored me.

Aw, let her go already, Tony mumbled, still grinning. He ran his hand through his dirty blond hair, which was thick with grease, and rubbed his own neck. She didn’t do nothing.

Gretchen’s chubby face was pink, turning red, and she gave in finally, shoving the girl against the hood of somebody’s station wagon. She held her finger up to the girl’s face and said, The next time … The next time, your ass is grass.

Everybody standing around said, Ewwwwww, and clapped, and Gretchen picked up her hoodie and wiped her nose, which was running. The other girl limped away, her mouth bleeding, while Tony Degan kept on laughing and nodding.

You’re fucking dead, the girl shouted from across the safety of the parking lot. I’m gonna get my friends and we’re gonna kick your ass.

Gretchen just turned to me and said, Let’s fucking go already, and I nodded, without a word, which was my way at the time, because I chose to live my life like fucking Zatoichi the blind samurai, you know, the samurai dude from the ’60s movies? I was going through that phase, watching nothing but samurai movies and horror flicks. That was some serious metal, you know, the blind swordsman with his flashing sword. If you don’t know, you need to check those movies out. Anyway, I was deadly fucking silent—deadly fucking silent—most of the time. I was a shy kid and I was afraid what I said sounded stupid, so I hardly ever said anything. I was the third wheel. Fifth wheel? I was the fucking wheel you didn’t really need, but I still hung around. I thought maybe my silence would one day impress somebody. As of yet, it hadn’t done much for me. Most people, when they thought of Brian Oswald, probably said, Who? Then someone might say, That dude, the quiet one that is always hanging around. Then the other person would probably say, Who? again. I was invisible to most people, I guess. For example, when Gretchen and I hopped back in the Ford Escort, the radio was working—a one-in-a-million chance—and we motored away to the tune of Dirty Deeds by the great AC/DC, before Gretchen switched the radio station on me without asking.

four

American History

10/3/90

I. Causes of the Revolutionary war were many

A. results of the French and Indian War, 1755 to 1763

1. American colonies think they helped British defeat French

2. King George III thinks colonies owe the British for protection

B. taxation without representation

1. No elected representatives in Parliament

2. Boston Tea Party, 1773

C. the Intolerable Acts and the Quebec Act

D. also many funny fucking stupid white powdery wigs were

fought over

E. 1775: minutemen vs. the redcoats

F. Bad-ass names for a metal band, if I ever have the

chance to be in one

1. The Unwieldy Hammer of Thor

2. Your Rotting Fucking Oracle

3. The Corpse Kings! Must Unite!

4. Fear the Thunder and Lightning of the Master Druid

5. The Most Deadly Spells

6. Hail Skeletor, like the skull dude from He-Man

7. The Lansdale Barbarians

8. Operation: Headwound

9. Dr. Killbot

10. All of Maggotkind

G. the Bad-ass covers set list

1. opening song? has to be Iron Man by Ozzy

2. Back in Black by AC/DC

3. Search and Destroy by Metallica

4. Communication Breakdown by Led Zeppelin

5. Paranoid by Ozzy

6. if you had a fucking amazing guitarist, then Sweet Child of Mine by GNR

7. Highway to Hell by AC/DC

8. Too Fast for Love by Mötley Crüe

9. again, if you had an amazing guitarist, Hot for Teacher by Van Halen

10. end the set with Cum on Feel the Noise by Quiet Riot

five

At her high school, Gretchen was punk rock and had a reputation for beating other girls up. We all got into trouble back then, but Gretchen was known as the girl who liked to fight. It was why I liked her so much, maybe. Being punk back then for most kids meant the way you dressed mostly, not what records you played—maybe that’s the way it still is in some places, I dunno. All the kids who had been geeks or fags or nerds or wastoids in junior high started dressing fucked-up when they hit high school, with the torn clothes and safety pins and makeup and dirty hair, and not one of them had ever heard of the MC5 or New York Dolls, but what it gave some of them was a group identity and also some courage, maybe. Kids in junior high who had once gotten the crap kicked out of them on a daily basis, well, now they would get pointed at and laughed at, but no one would fuck with them and so they didn’t have to take anyone’s shit ever again. Being punk meant having something to fight against. That’s what happened with Gretchen. By her junior year at Mother McCauley Catholic Academy for Young Women, she had been involved in at least five full-on fistfights and suspended three times already. She routinely received detentions for her failure to adhere to the uniform; she had been sent home several times to change her hair and makeup and clothes. She was still serving demerits for having her hair dyed pink, and had to spend time in detention every Tuesday. It was what made me like hanging out with her, I guess. She did the things I wished I could do but didn’t have the guts to, maybe. Like with everything.

OK, so the fourth in-school suspension Gretchen got—the one she always talked about—was for fucking up Stacy Bensen. Stacy Bensen, the girl who had run for president of student council under the motto Stacy Bensen—why? Because you’re too lazy to do it, and had won. Stacy had made the bad mistake of calling Gretchen a fat dyke. After it happened, Gretchen told the fucking story so many times—at the counter of Snackville Junction, in a booth at Wojos, in the crappy Escort, at parties, to her sister, to my brother, to my little sister, to her dad, in the parking lot of Haunted Trails, to people we didn’t even know—that I could tell exactly what happened, probably better than she could tell it, maybe. Also, when she told it she usually left out the most important part, which I will not do, I promise you. OK, so it went down like this:

One day after remedial English class, a period in which all Gretchen did was write her favorite band names in black ink on her arms and legs—ramones, the descendents, the clash—Gretchen decided that she’d had it, she did not like school. None of us liked school—well, I did, but I would have never admitted it to

Reviews for Hairstyles of the Damned

[faedemon · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

i really wanted to like this book, but it just wasn't very good. kinda boring.

[borrows0n0wants · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great read. I loved the narrative style; it seemed like you were talking with one of your closest friends. It's an interesting look into the mind of a young punk scene boy.

[ijustgetbored · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this some time back and remembered liking it very much. Because I like ruining good things, I suppose, I reread it and was extremely disappointed.

The extremely male-centric gaze of the narrator permeates the entire novel, and I don't think it's just a literary device. Instead of getting the sense that I was reading a teenage male's narrative of his life, I felt like I was reading a narrative by a teenage male. The female characters are notably one-dimensonal and are excluded from coming to any enlightenments in the novel. There aren't many "good guys" in the novel, and that's understandable as a reflection of 1990s ennui. The female characters are often the locus of this angst, however.

I like the mixtapes device for the nostalgia value, but Meno does not use it very well, structurally speaking. The lists/tapes are interspersed in a way that does not contribute to any narrative structure; they read more like the author's own personal notes about "songs I liked or hated."

I don't ask for a happy ending, and Meno reflects 1990s teenage angst well. The nihilism of the ending is very bleak, though. If this is a bildungsroman, the pinnacle of evolution of character is realizing that (paging Holden Caulfield, who would have absolutely listened to punk) everything is phony.

And that's the novel in a nutshell: Holden Caulfield in 1990s Chicago, without any Phoebe to provide a slim hope.

[tonstant.weader · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno very much. I would have enjoyed it more with a serif font. Perhaps I am being shallow, but I don’t think so. Serif fonts are more readable in long printed text and with the san serif, I frequently lost my place on the the page. Coupled with the smaller than usual point size of the type and occasional use of handwriting fonts and the book design seemed to this reader like a sign that said “No Grown-ups allowed.”

So, it was a struggle to read the book, but the book was well worth the struggle. Hairstyles of the Damned is the story of Brian Oswald, a seventeen year old boy growing up on the south side of Chicago in 1990 and 1991. Brian is very much a typical adolescent boy, trying to fit in and trying to stand out at the same time. The story is organized around the big events of the school years, homecoming and prom. Those events loom large because there will be pictures that will freeze him in time–forever to be judged by the merits or demerits of his date.

Told in the first person, his voice is authentic and honest. By authentic, I mean he is repetitive at times, often banal, frequently shallow and of course, his chronic obsession with girls and sex is dwarfed by his obsession with himself. He rants, plots never-gonna-happen revenge, and imagines improbably fame as a musician. He thinks a lot but his ideas are inchoate–he does not yet dare to follow his ideas to the realizations that, when they come, might draw him into adulthood.

Music is a huge part of the book. Brian is coming of the age during the era of the mixtape, when boys and girls expressed their inner selves by compiling a cassette tape that bared their souls. A mixtape could be a declaration of love, an explosion of rage, or a cri de couer. Metal and punk mixtapes are as much a part of the story as the people and often are the most articulate emotional expressions.

While Brian is the main character in Hairstyles of the Damned, the secondary characters are vital and vivid, fully-realized characters as well. The story of Mike Madden for example, is a compelling view of parental malpractice. In a stereotypical midlife divorce, Mike’s father dumps his mother and his responsibilities, trading them in on a convertible and a young girlfriend. Mike’s Mom displaces her anger on her children, disavowing any responsibility for them and we see Mike go from an engaged and bright student to a sullen, violent drop out.

Brian is worried the same may happen to him as his parents’ marriage is falling apart–his father’s despair and mother’s unhappiness are constant static in the background of his life. Meanwhile, he wants to get laid, have a girlfriend and be accepted. He’s in love with Gretchen, the pink-haired punk rock girl, but she’s fat and would no photograph well for Homecoming. Besides, she is interested in someone else.

It’s all a muddle and mostly Brian muddles through, following, observing, but not seldom having agency in his own life, following his friends, claiming attributes, opinions and skills to fit in. Oh, it is all so very adolescent and really, that is the magic of this book. It does not feel like a novel written by an adult. It feels like we are prying in Brian’s diary, spying on the thoughts of a real adolescent.

The book is eventful, but these are the events of ordinary life.The cataclysms are small and ordinary–divorce, fights, friendships forged and broken, relationships developed and cast aside–the stuff of high school. And of courses, for Brian who is in high school they matter so damn much.

3pawsI recommend Hairstyles of the Damned, particularly to music loves and even more particularly to punk music lovers. Thoughtful curation of music is an art form and Brian (and Joe Mena) excel. I also think it succeeds in evoking authentic adolescent angst with empathy but not sentimentality. I enjoyed it, but I know I would have enjoyed it more with a kinder typeface.

[engpunk77 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I couldn't believe my ears when I heard The Misfits coming from the RADIO! Sure enough, it was coming from NPR on a Saturday morning. Meno was promoting this book and the background soundtrack and interview was enough to propel me right to the library (15 minutes!) to check out this book. I read it all that day and found it entertaining while immersing me with nostalgia. The lyrics, the band names, the descriptions of the characters and "shows" in the basement brought back sweet memories. It's only sweet now, of course--those days were just as uncomfortable and confusing as Brian finds it. I could have liked him more if he weren't such a wimp and if he didn't go through the classic DEVO phase.

[louis.arata · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Something grabbed me about this novel. It was so different stylistically from The Boy Detective Fails that I was instantly intrigued. I couldn't believe the same author wrote both works.

The story unfolds in a rambling fashion, saying a lot through teenage misdirection. Bryan Oswald, a junior in a Catholic high school, has fallen in love with his best friend, Gretchen. Over the course of his junior year, he watches as his parents' marriage dissolves, his friends go through relationship break-ups, and his school experiences racial tension. Bryan is struggling to make sense of it all -- his emotional reactions and his growing awareness of the facades people fashion to hide their true identities. He goes through his own identity shifts from heavy metal to punk, only to realize that it's a form of posturing without it being a true expression of who he really is.

Bryan's high school days are very different from my own, but I could relate to his burgeoning maturity. He can't always articulate what he's feeling, or why he's feeling it, but you know these experiences are shaping him.

[caryn0rose · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book had incredible high points and then points at which I literally skimmed through hoping it would get good again, which it did. I definitely believe it could have been shorter & tighter but I still enjoyed the experience and felt it was an unique viewpoint and a story I was glad I read.

[akmargie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very Chicago book by a very Chicago author. Its really a book for the just past teen age than it is a YA book but I think it could work both ways. Seriously funny and brutally honest.

[scperryz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Entertaining and likeable. The characters feel resoundingly true to life, unlike so many "written" teens. I greatly enjoyed reading this book, and ultimately found it charming (although I expect the author would gag at that word).

[delphica · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thought this was very cute, and VERY true to my memories of this era (okay, I predate this setting by a year or two, but I think it's close) ... high school and the teenagers that hate it, not having a clue about dating and the terrible Awkward that results, punk rock, driving around, mix tapes, hooking up, insufferable parents, basement parties, and hair. I especially got a kick out of the gang of annoying Minor Threat fans that would show up periodically, yet had nothing to do with the plot. That kind of sums up straight edge for me, actually.

I thought it was sweet, funny, and angsty enough to appeal to teenagers without being too unbearable for non-teens.

Grade: very strong B+
Recommended: it's a good nostalgia read for those who lived through the late 80s/early 90s and made too many mix tapes.

[meganangela · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hairstyles of the Damned is one of those books that you either love or you hate. Luckily for this review, I loved it. This book is full of regular teen angst set against a backdrop of the Chicago punk scene in the early 90's. Full of top 10 lists and mix-tapes, Joe Meno sets the triumphs and failures of his main character against a rockin' soundtrack. Full of heartache, longing, confusion, and sometimes acceptance and understanding, Hairstyles of the Damned can conjure up memories from our own angst filled youth no matter what the decade. I'd recommend this to all of my friends who have been there and know the pain and excitement of being a teen trying to find where they fit in.

[elizardkwik · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I picked up this book because of the cover and the title, but I was very disappointed. It ended up being a slightly modernized version of Catcher in the Rye -- heavy on the swearing and filled with flashbacks and tangents, lacking much of an actual plot line.

[magadri-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great read. I loved the narrative style; it seemed like you were talking with one of your closest friends. It's an interesting look into the mind of a young punk scene boy.

[jeyra_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great punk fiction! Accurate and strangely touching portrayal of the off-beat, screwed-up, and essentially normal '90's teenager. Contains language and sexuality.

[rtylerragan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Really great book. What i liked most about it is that i was able to relate to the book so much. I had many experiences like the main character and felt like i knew so many of the other characters.

[maryintexas39 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Laugh out loud funny!