11/05/2018
A gay teen seeks self-definition through sex, drugs, and punk rock in this sometimes grim, sometimes exuberant coming-of-age memoir. A food journalist and Top Chef Masters judge, Oseland (Cradle of Flavor) recalls his late-1970s high school years in a dreary Bay Area town under the thumb of his fragile, homophobic single mom and rowdy, homophobic schoolmates, who were forever spraying him with epithets. He started venturing into San Francisco, where offbeat gal-pals introduced him to the emerging punk-rock scene; he also experienced giddy gay trysts and a serious relationship, at age 15, with a 38-year-old artist. (“We laughed” after discussing the statutory rape question, he writes.) Oseland adopted the nom de punk “Jimmy Neurosis” along with dyed-orange hair, eyeliner, torn shirts, and women’s capri pants, and weathered familial conflict, a savage beating by thugs, and trying to “shake the sense that I was a stranger in a strange land.” Oseland’s memoir juxtaposes suburban banality with grungy punk clubs, Quaaludes and heroin, and furtive men’s-room hookups, in a stew of atmospheric prose (“The band started playing... a corrosive progression of electronic noises, loud enough that it felt like a solid mass I could lean on”). Oseland’s adolescent sulks sometimes grate, but at his best he presents an engrossing portrait of his emergence from childhood constraints into a frightening, exhilarating adult world. (Feb.)
Oseland writes this vibrant coming-of-age memoir in an instantly lovable voice, part surly teenager and part sweetly naive dreamer. . . . At times, Jimmy Neurosis echoes Patti Smith’s Just Kids . . . but Oseland tells this story with a poignant style all his own.” — Rolling Stone
“Affecting . . . Here we see the power of the punk scene before it grows corrupted, and even of those brief flashes of intimacy, physical or otherwise, which Oseland shares with his anonymous partners, a strategy to expose and, in some way, to mitigate his vulnerability and loneliness.” — Los Angeles Times
“It ain’t easy being a gay adolescent punk-rocker in suburbia but this heroic book proves you can survive conventional society’s assholism if you believe in your own style and find an outlaw culture to welcome you in before you go off the deep end.” — John Waters
“A page-turner about a timid adolescent who hurls himself out of 1970s suburban California into New York and San Francisco’s electric gay scenes. This gripping and inspired tale of the artist as a young man vividly shows that it does in fact get better.” — Andre Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name
“I rooted for Jimmy Neurosis on every page of this brave, engrossing, deeply touching memoir.” — Francine Prose, author of What to Read and Why
“In this triumphant book, James Oseland not only reminds you how hard it is to be teetering on the edge of adulthood, but also what it takes to move forward. For the first time in my life I finally understand the appeal of Punk Rock.” — Ruth Reichl, author of Tender at the Bone
“Nonstop entertainment with an irreverent voice and a beautiful lens over a golden age now gone.” — Out Magazine, “9 Queer Books to Read This Month”
Oseland writes this vibrant coming-of-age memoir in an instantly lovable voice, part surly teenager and part sweetly naive dreamer. . . . At times, Jimmy Neurosis echoes Patti Smith’s Just Kids . . . but Oseland tells this story with a poignant style all his own.
Affecting . . . Here we see the power of the punk scene before it grows corrupted, and even of those brief flashes of intimacy, physical or otherwise, which Oseland shares with his anonymous partners, a strategy to expose and, in some way, to mitigate his vulnerability and loneliness.
A page-turner about a timid adolescent who hurls himself out of 1970s suburban California into New York and San Francisco’s electric gay scenes. This gripping and inspired tale of the artist as a young man vividly shows that it does in fact get better.
It ain’t easy being a gay adolescent punk-rocker in suburbia but this heroic book proves you can survive conventional society’s assholism if you believe in your own style and find an outlaw culture to welcome you in before you go off the deep end.
I rooted for Jimmy Neurosis on every page of this brave, engrossing, deeply touching memoir.
Nonstop entertainment with an irreverent voice and a beautiful lens over a golden age now gone.
In this triumphant book, James Oseland not only reminds you how hard it is to be teetering on the edge of adulthood, but also what it takes to move forward. For the first time in my life I finally understand the appeal of Punk Rock.
Affecting . . . Here we see the power of the punk scene before it grows corrupted, and even of those brief flashes of intimacy, physical or otherwise, which Oseland shares with his anonymous partners, a strategy to expose and, in some way, to mitigate his vulnerability and loneliness.
It ain’t easy being a gay adolescent punk-rocker in suburbia but this heroic book proves you can survive conventional society’s assholism if you believe in your own style and find an outlaw culture to welcome you in before you go off the deep end.
Nonstop entertainment with an irreverent voice and a beautiful lens over a golden age now gone.
