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"Burn Down The Night" is a fictionalized account of a homeless teenager in the heady days of the mid to late 1960s, and his life doing drugs and traveling as a roadie with a rock group (after accidentally committing a murder in the course of a robbery, the group takes him in). The main character bumps into Jim Morrison at a party, and they start hanging together and acting crazy. Sounds silly, but it's all in the writing style; Strete is wonderfully poetic and humorous, and the story moves with the easy flow of a 1960's friday night keg party. Very depressing in parts, very funny in others, it's a fast and easy read with a high re-readability factor.
It's kind of sad to see books like this out of print these days -- I suppose people think it glamorizes the drugging/partying lifestyle, and in a way it does. Yet Strete's talent as a writer and poet cannot be denied. The trouble is that there's no clear target audience for a book of this nature. If you bump into a copy of this book somewhere and appreciate quirky titles lacking in modern market appeal, give it a shot. I've got a copy of it myself, and it's one of those personally valued books I'd never sell or give away (along with "Auschwitz," "This Perfect Day" and other OOP but fascinating reads).
"Burn Down The Night" is a fictionalized account of a homeless teenager in the heady days of the mid to late 1960s, and his life doing drugs and traveling as a roadie with a rock group (after accidentally committing a murder in the course of a robbery, the group takes him in). The main character bumps into Jim Morrison at a party, and they start hanging together and acting crazy. Sounds silly, but it's all in the writing style; Strete is wonderfully poetic and humorous, and the story moves with the easy flow of a 1960's friday night keg party. Very depressing in parts, very funny in others, it's a fast and easy read with a high re-readability factor.
It's kind of sad to see books like this out of print these days -- I suppose people think it glamorizes the drugging/partying lifestyle, and in a way it does. Yet Strete's talent as a writer and poet cannot be denied. The trouble is that there's no clear target audience for a book of this nature. If you bump into a copy of this book somewhere and appreciate quirky titles lacking in modern market appeal, give it a shot. I've got a copy of it myself, and it's one of those personally valued books I'd never sell or give away (along with "Auschwitz," "This Perfect Day" and other OOP but fascinating reads).
Although the copy I read in high school has Jim
Morrison's face on the front and the back-cover
blurb suggests that he and the protagonist are
together at every moment, this book simply features him as an interesting, annoying, odd and infrequent supporting character.
I think I great deal of Strete's poetry was lost
on me the first few times I read this, but I have
little desire to read it again. I found it compelling as a teenager, but knew at the time that I was missing something. Now that I could
appreciate it, I don't think the story is complex
enough to warrant another try.
I mainly get the impression that I never want to
be a roadie, and that I should very carefully
select the people whom I may run away from home with for a week.
If you like poetic prose and have even a slight interest in the sort of environment Morrison may have been in, you may want to pick up this book. You'll probably get more out of it than I did. However, if neither interests you, give it a miss.
It's ... okay.
