Incendiary Magazine Website (Netherlands)

I was tempted to quote Ginsberg’s howl at the beginning of my review, (You know, “I saw the best minds of my generation…” and all that) but thought better of it. This is an angry enough book, I warn you. The story is about the struggle Peter Kalafatis faces to come to terms with the death of his brother, which in turn has led him to question pretty much everything about his own life.

The book’s structure is pretty rigidly orchestrated, chapter by chapter, between flashbacks of Kalafatis’s past life on the streets and the events leading up to (and including) his brother’s funeral. I know it’s not the most original narrative way of dealing with these sort of issues, and there is a lot of personal question-and-answer stuff that sometimes drags the book to a snarling halt - and in turn makes us non former street junkies feel a bit bloody uncomfortable - but Kalafatis’s jerky, (sometimes apoplectic) style is suited to describing the events he portrays. There’s not really a lot of space for literary flannel.

There are some tremendous bits of action - if a bit ghoulish - such as the killing of an old man by Kalafatis’s street gang, and the running maul which sees Kalafatis almost lose his life; but credit where credit’s due, he tells it as he sees it. You never feel as if he’s dramatizing matters… I can imagine the author cocking a snook at my literary poncey-ness if I mention Cyril Tourner’s Revenger’s Tragedy, but A Rebel Life and the aforementioned play definitely share their respective narrator’s feelings of self-loathing and desperate determination to solve the world’s problems with a single crushing blow. It also, with its caustic journaling of a bum’s life, reminds me very much of Bukowski (but I bet lots have made that connection).

There is an ending of sorts, and mercifully he steers clear of becoming too moralising or boringly self-help obsessed. The only real quibble is that he repeatedly sets himself up as some kind of recalcitrant willing to learn after each mistake, (and subsequent self-discovery); which does lead the reader to scream “well, get on with it then, and tell us everything when you’ve finished” but I suppose life was never lived in a straight line…

Interesting stuff, honest and powerful.

Words: Richard Foster