Jayne Margetts Okay, so I listen to Thom Yorke, and enjoy reading books about people living with a gun pointed to their head. Call it entertainment, or living vicariously through others; apathy, black humour, a touch of the politically incorrect and make me laugh out loud, in these dark and here troubled times. I remember […]
Zoe Trope – Please Don’t Kill The Freshman
Jayne Margetts strolls down the angry and angst-filled school corridors of Zoe Trope Post Columbine, High School is a weird kinda place; it’s not so much trapped in the aftermath of a shooting-range emporium frenzy as it is floating in the jetsam of Leftist magazines, strange poetry & Birkenstocks. Today “Lipstick lesbians, cracked-coffee-cream-lips & obnoxious […]
Margaret Atwood – Oryx And Crake
Jayne Margetts Have you ever hit that juncture at the gritty-4am-to-sunrise shift when the TV is fuzzing in the background to the ultraviolet rhythm of the dawn? You know, when there is scant evidence of life and when pre-Cable TV left the insomniacs dribbling at B-grade movies and David Carradine eulogizing the virtues of Anthropology? […]
Anthony Bourdain: A Cook’s Tour: Eat The World
Jayne Margetts on Anthony Bourdain’s quest to eat the most gastronomically dangerous dishes on the planet I love my authors a tad on the fresh, petulant and carnal side. A splatter of blood-and-guts-style reportage only heightens the pleasure, as do tales of human squalor and degradation. I can hack romance, but only in staccato style, […]
Angus Oblong – Creepy Susie: and 13 Other Tragic Tales For Troubled Childre
Jayne Margetts The first time I laid eyes upon the troubled cast of Royston Vasey’s The League Of Gentlemen I almost vomited. Such grotesque, pantomime-scarred characters, which could turn the stomach with a flutter of the eyelash, stirred the strings of disturbance with all and sundry. A BAFTA Award (2000 for Production) confirmed that comedy […]
Chuck Palahniuk : I Want To Have Your Abortion
Jayne Margetts on the writing of Chuck Palahniuk When Bret Easton Ellis unleashed his novel, American Psycho, with its beautiful 18+ logo scripted on a lurid, Picasso-esque cover, my mind went into overdrive. Ellis’ literary missile was unlike anything written before. Its descriptive prose bled psychosis, its painstaking attention to detail as a Guide Book […]
John King: Headhunters
Jayne Margetts By nature, the female of the species should NOT enjoy the works of British writer, John King. Why? Because he is everything that the Loaded-generation embody. Because he is a male chauvinists’ dream. Because women are only vessels of sexual gratification for men. Because his novels are filled with the testosterone of too […]
Toni Davidson: Scar Culture
Jayne Margetts Canongate’s Rebel Inc imprint has become the torchbearer for the Dysfunctional Generation. If grim reality, catharsis and profane verse is your poison then chances are they can prescribe a literary hotchpotch of cutting-edge contemporary writers to suit your taste buds. Feeling pessimistic or down-right suicidal then look no further than the critically lauded […]
Barry Gifford: The Sinoloa Story
Jayne Margetts There is always beauty in violence, particularly when the written word is the vernacular. There are many kinds of perpetrators who wield the pen with the expertise of a dominatrix whipping her victim into submission; from James Ellroy and Elmore Leonard to the once savage and brutal Bret Easton Ellis (in his American […]
Emily Jenkins: Tongue First: Adventures In Physical Culture
Jayne Margetts It’s no secret that the thought of wading through another chapter and verse of literary cultural dissection usually holds about as much appeal as taking a skinny dip in a bath full of female pythons with PMT. After all, how many book store shelves are stocked with feminist rant and rave from the […]
Liam Howlett : The Prodigy: The Dirtchamber Sessions : Down In The Dirt
Jayne Margetts encounters The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett going solo with The Dirtchamber Sessions There is no easy way to put this, but Liam Paris Howlett is the pin-up poster boy of electronic punk. Choice doesn’t enter into the equation. The scions of street cred and music bibles Mixmag, Loaded and The Face would fight tooth […]
