- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Fiction; 1 edition (Sep 18 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060527900
- ISBN-13: 978-0060527907
- Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 14.7 x 2.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 426 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #652,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In his latest satiric bid for immortality (after The Neil Pollack Anthology of American Literature: The Collected Writings of Neal Pollack), humorist Pollack details the life of a famed rock critic named, predictably, Neal Pollack, and takes swipes at scores of legends along the way. Styled as a series of interviews by rival rock critic Paul St. Pierre, conducted after Pollack's untimely death, the novel charts the history of Neal, born Norbert Pollackovitz in 1941 Memphis, Tenn. Norbert's love for music is evident early on, and soon he and neighborhood pal Elvis Presley are making noise in town. When Elvis accidentally backs over Norbert's father with a truck, Norbert is on his own and is christened Neal Pollack by his pals; he soon flees town to discover the world. St. Pierre's progress in examining the life of the "grizzled monster" is slow until he visits Bob Dylan in Woodstock, N.Y. As Dylan tells it, he met Pollack in 1961, at Woody Guthrie's bedside. The incorrigible Pollack goes on to steal Joan Baez away from Dylan and then moves to Liverpool to become a star rock critic. By the mid-'70s, Pollack returns to Manhattan; Johnny Rotten, Iggy Pop, David Bowie and, later, Kurt Cobain make cameos. Saturated with original song lyrics and pop-up appearances by rock music's greatest legends, Pollack's novel has a swinging appeal. Not everyone will want to tune in for the author's manic tongue-in-cheek self-canonization-his kitchen-sink approach sometimes makes for garbled reading-but Spinal Tap fans and groupies everywhere will be delighted.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Billed as "a rock-'n'-roll novel"--"rock-'n'-roll-critic novel" is probably more accurate--Pollack's foray into fiction isn't that much of a leap from his fictitious essays written by his alter ego, the "Greatest Living American Writer," Neal Pollack (The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, 2002). In his first novel, he tells the story of a late, great rock critic also named Neal Pollack. Pollack, the character, was a self-destructive, prescient, loose cannon of a critic (not unlike Lester Bangs) who was discovered by Sam Phillips in 1951, several years before he discovered Elvis Presley. In fact, Pollack was instrumental in getting Elvis to Sun studios for his first recordings (later he wrote about Elvis in 'zines) and, it turns out, in launching the careers of Dylan, the Stones, Iggy Pop, and Kurt Cobain. Iconoclastic, sometimes hilarious, and always mean-spirited, Pollack (the novelist) spares no one in his satirical jeremiad aimed at popular music and the critics who take it so seriously. Benjamin Segedin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The phone rang in the post-noon dusk, and I answered it, because I'd told them not to call me unless somebody famous died. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The phone rang in the post-noon dusk, and I answered it, because I'd told them not to call me unless somebody famous died. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Laugh out loud satire with some deeper currents, too,
By A Customer
This review is from: Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel (Hardcover)
What Neal has written is a scathing, highly entertaining critique of rock journalism. His characters form a spectrum from the dirtiest, most indie to the vaulted pseudo intellectual set, and he wastes no time flaying them all on the razor's edge of rock. As a reader who isn't a real rock afficionado, the jokes were broad enough and about people I'd heard of or who had been introduced through the "history" enough to be laughed at - the book moves fast, and some punchlines didn't hit until a couple pages afterward, when I found myself laughing out loud. Tragedy + time equals comedy, and by the time the story rollercoasters from the fifties to the nineties, it becomes clear where rock comes from, and why critics will never touch the true source. I definitely think Never Mind the Pollacks is a growth over Neal's other work - he's stepping outside the mimic-satire of Anthology of American Literature and coming at the material edgewise, broadening the message. This book proves Neal has more to say, and I'm looking forward to whatever else is to come, be it rock music or indie lit.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Neal Pollack, the Mel Brooks Of Literature,
By A Customer
This review is from: Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel (Hardcover)
In his writing, Pollack plays with genre cliches just like Mel Brooks did. Instead of seeing Never Mind The Pollacks as the end-point of literature, as some critics seem to insist, look at it as the early work of one of our great satirists. Rock-n-roll is a little overplayed as a topic, but this book is still hilarious. I look forward to seeing Pollack's work develop as he takes on weightier material.
5.0 out of 5 stars
200 of the funniest puke jokes you'll ever read,
By A Customer
This review is from: Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel (Hardcover)
If you like rock and roll now, or if you liked rock and roll 20 years ago, you should read this book. Pollack has created a sort of alternate universe where all of rock and roll happened in a brief, sex, drug, and puke filled moment. In this alternate world, there is one man at the center of it all, and his name happens to be (by accident, so I hear...) Neal Pollack. He writes about, sings with, and gets sexually transmitted diseases from every major figure in American rock and roll, from Elvis to Kurt Cobain.This is a funny book. It is not a serious, complicated look at the history of rock. It is not a great work of profound literature. It is funny book, and it is filled with laugh out loud pieces, including an amazing dialogue about the existence of breakfast in heaven. This is a book for people who think rock stars and rock culture is ridiculous. Do not listen to the critics. Get this book now.
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