If you thought you know everything about the punk generation.... think again. From 1955 to 1998 the angst of James Dean's Rebel Without A Cause evolved to the intelligence of Eric Bogosian's SubUrbia & James Merendino's SLC Punk! But even the latter two movies only scratched the surface of the nihilistic rejection of traditional values. From the point of view of an author who watched tradition collapse firsthand, A Rebel Life: Murder by the Rich contains observations of how the American dream isn't as it appears, and how the less affluent are swallowed whole by the system.

In the mid 1980s, writer Peter Kalafatis accepted the nihilism of American punk instead of the promises made on TV screens of fulfillment by wealth. Seeing his family struggle and receive only a small piece of the pie led to his decision. He lived as a punk and an anarchist for a decade, until confronted with the choice of leaving or dying. But conforming to society was no more the answer than street life, it only created more confusion regarding the upper classes. Then came the news that Kalafatis' younger brother Archie, who made a similar decision to rebel, died of a drug overdose.

Aside from the stereotypical judgment that punks blame society for the sake of blaming society, Kalafatis concluded that his brother's death was as much a result of upper class greed as his refusal to become part of the machine. With his former life turned on its head, grieving of his brother's overdose, Kalafatis was agonized with a choice of seeking revenge by violence or seeking justice by holding society responsible where it fits. Asserting that only those who can see beyond society's promises and distinguish "the game" as it is are accountable for their actions, Kalafatis seeks to educate his own kid to halt society's corruption by diagnosing and exposing it. Then will change become meaningful.

- Dave Wolff