This was the first book I ever threw in the bin. In fact, possibly the only one! I don't like throwing books away! Especially ones given to me.

But this book left me feeling sullied and disturbed. No doubt that is partly the author's intention - it is, after all, a horror story. But this was one of the first "splatterpunk" novels, filled with gratuitous violence and far too much sex and deviancy. All this is mixed in with a kind of musical snobbery - the author's other trade - which clearly seeks to lift the novel out of the gutter into something more literary, but in fact it just grates horribly.

I nearly did not list it here at all. Its not a novel I am proud to have read, but in the interests of completeness I have added it to my library (not that I own a copy any more).

This is a book to studiously avoid. ( )

signed #58