Human Punk

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First edition (publ. Jonathan Cape)

Human Punk is a novel by John King that tells the story of a group of boys who leave school in 1977 and the effect the emerging punk movement has on their lives. The book is largely based in Slough, a new town on the outskirts of London, famed for its industry and large trading estate. Human Punk follows the lives of main character Joe Martin and his friends Smiles, Dave and Chris across the next three decades. It has been widely translated abroad in countries such as France, Italy and Russia.

Plot[]

Set against a soundtrack of Clash, Sex Pistols, Ruts and Ramones records, sixteen-year-old Joe sets about enjoying his new-found freedom, which in the summer of ’77 means hard-drinking pubs and working-men’s clubs, local Teds, soulboys. disco girls and a job picking cherries with the gypsies. A joyride to Camden Town in North London takes him to see his first band, but it is a late-night incident back on the streets of Slough that changes his life forever.

The second part of the book takes place in 1988 and finds Joe in China, receiving bad news in a letter from home. He buys a black-market ticket and takes the Trans-Siberian Express back to England. During this journey he reflects on the events that have filled the intervening years, eventually returning to that night in 1977. Siberia passes in a series of recollections and romance with a Russian woman, Joe arriving in Moscow during the days of Mikhail Gorbachev, continuing to Berlin where he crosses the Wall in the early hours. More trains take him on to Slough.

The third section of Human Punk captures the main characters as they reach middle-age. They are older, but little wiser. Slough has changed, but not too much, the spirit that drove Joe and his friends as boys stronger than ever. He makes his living in a range of ways, one of which involves the buying and selling of second-hand records. His punk beliefs remain solid. Life bounces along until a face from the past emerges from the haze of a misty morning and forces him to stop and confront his memories once more.

Cultural impact[]

Human Punk covers many aspects of the punk scene, from the original music and bands to its DIY ethos. It is also a novel that charts some major shifts in British society, from the failing Labour government of 1977 to Thatcherism in the 1980s (when Joe almost literally “gets on his bike”), and later the New Labour of Tony Blair and a Cool Britannia that means little to those portrayed in the book. Human Punk reflects a version of punk that is anti-fashion, its roots to be found in the broader culture of the main characters.

The novel has been praised for its literary style as well its subject matter, and is one of only a few novels that attempt to capture punk and its legacy. Reviewing the book, the New Statesman said: “In its ambition and exuberance, Human Punk is a league ahead of much contemporary English fiction.” ^[1]The Independent wrote : “The long sentences and paragraphs build up cumulatively, with the sequences describing an end-of-term punch-up and the final canal visit just two virtuoso examples. These passages come close to matching the coiled energy of Hubert Selby’s prose... In the resolution of the novel’s central, devastating act, there is an almost Shakespearean sense of a brief restoration of balance after the necessary bloodletting.” ^[2]

Human Punk has also been well-received in punk circles. JC Carroll of The Members, whose hit single “Sound Of The Suburbs” reflects similar landscapes, said of the book: “Human Punk shines as a beacon of suburban working-class literature, a fucked-up Catcher In The Rye, high on speed and punk rock. This is not the punk of the Sunday supplement arts pages, this is English culture, educated not at Oxbridge but on the streets of Slough.” Watford Jon, lead singer of Argy Bargy, called Human Punk, “The best book I have ever read”, while Lars Frederiksen of Rancid wrote the following for the US edition (2015): “John King: the face in our subculture who lives what he writes.” ^[3]

Since 2014, King (aka JK Herbert) and the DJ Doctor Vinyl have been running Human Punk nights at the 100 Club on Oxford Street, London. A number of bands featured in the novel have appeared, along with a list of new talent. Established groups to have played Human Punk include the Cockney Rejects, Ruts DC, Sham 69, Old Firm Casuals and The Professionals, along with emerging acts such as Knock Off, The Outfit, Crown Court and Grade 2. In keeping with the novel's approach, an eclectic series of bills have also included rockabilly band The Polecats and the legendary ska singer Roy Ellis from Symarip.^[4]

References[]