|
With
its frenetic energy and nonconformist attitude, punk rock
doesn't seem to be much of a family friendly genre. Yet many
musicians—including Pennywise frontman and Punk Rock
Dad author Jim Lindberg—actively maintain their rock
'n' roll lifestyles while raising families. Author Cecil Castellucci
witnessed this balancing act firsthand as an employee at punk
label Epitaph Records, and the experience inspired the writing
of her third young adult novel, Beige. A musician herself,
Castellucci considers herself more indie rock than punk, but
one wouldn't know the difference in this surprisingly sweet
look at life in the Southern California music scene.
Katy
is a teenager from Montreal who must spend her summer living
in Los Angeles with her musician father. He isn't just any
musician, though: He is Beau Ratner, better known as the Rat,
a recovering drug addict and drummer for the influential but
commercially unsuccessful punk band Suck. Though the Rat is
excited to bond with Katy after nearly a decade of estrangement,
she sees the trip as a vacation in hell. In her eyes, she's
as far from punk as one could imagine. She's a somewhat prissy
"nice girl" who does what she is told, keeps her opinions
to herself, and dismisses most music as noise. The only concert
she has ever attended was for a boy band whose members she
thought were cute.
Clearly,
Katy's street cred is teetering dangerously close to the negative
double digits, and the only thing saving her from becoming
a woefully preppy teenage prude is her rebelliousness: What
better way to act out against her rock 'n' roll father than
to be painfully square? Katy self-righteously frowns on the
Rat's lifestyle, finding comfort instead in her belief that
he is just an overgrown child clinging to his rebellious youth.
But these thinly-veiled defense mechanisms don't last long
when she is thrust into the Rat's world of raucous punk shows
in dirty venues. Compared to the Angelinos who seem to feed
off the music around them, Katy is frigid and feeble and utterly
beige.
Readers
unfamiliar with the punk scene will be able to identify with
Katy's confusion, and those interested in music outside the
mainstream will find Beige a great introduction into the subculture.
Castellucci even titles her chapter after songs, the tracks
comprising a "punk rock primer" mix CD that Katy's friend
Garth makes for her, including classics from Dead Kennedys,
Suicidal Tendencies, MC5, and the Ramones.
Though
not a California native herself, Castellucci flexes her substantial
L.A. rock creditability early and often. Page 9 alone name
drops several staples of the local music scene, including
KXLU (the city's best college radio station), KCRW (home of
Nic Harcourt's influential Morning Becomes Eclectic),
and the now-defunct Sea Level Records (whose space is currently
home to 826LA's Echo Park Time Travel Mart). The references
are obscure at times—even many L.A. natives are unfamiliar
with such landmarks as "Rock 'n' Roll" Denny's—but these
little winks and smiles lend the book a sense of ambience
and authenticity that is one of the hallmarks of the punk
rock movement.
Setting
the novel in Silver Lake and Echo Park neighborhoods of L.A.
is pitch perfect, as the area is the center of the
Southland's creative types. Los Angeles is also the perfect
city for weaving a tale of identity, acceptance, and redemption.
Katy's arrogant presumptions about her father's lifestyle
easily mirror the arrogant presumptions the world seems to
have of the city. While Katy dismisses the punk subculture
as violent and dirty, many people view the city as vapid and
materialistic. And just as these outsiders refuse to see Los
Angeles for its true diversity and brilliance, Katy willfully
refuses to see the depths of her father's love and devotion.
Though
Beige is a young adult novel, it has an obvious appeal
to grown-ups familiar with punk or the L.A. music scene, and
Castellucci's writing is strong enough to engage adult readers
as well as teens. Heartfelt and beautifully honest, it is
a wonderful love letter to L.A., its music, and the families
who rock its core.
(July
2008)
|
