Kill Your Friends¶
233 words on Books
I had heard that John Niven’s novel Kill Your Friends is quite entertaining and about the music industry. Then I made a mistake and ordered a copy of it in German (of course I still blame them for that because they used the English title for the German edition as well). Ugh, crap! But while the translation probably spoiled things a little (business terms tend to make German texts overly formal and swearing and obscenities also sound much less casual in German than they do in English), it actually wasn’t painfully bad.
While by no stretch of the imagination high-brow literature, the book was a light, casual and entertaining read. It’s the year 1997 in the life of ‘A&R’ person Steven - narrated by himself. As such it moves pretty much along the stereotype of that business. No idea or interest in music - but terribly busy trying to find the next cash cow, scoring and using alcohol, cocaine and whores (not necessarily in that order and quite likely all three together), and a bit of disregard for everybody else from the ‘acts’ to the colleagues in between.
To make this more interesting the story was enriched with a hint of American Psycho - meaning that we don’t get the classy business cards but still the envy about better looks or cars. And a kill or two.
Bookmark: 19-03-2008, BA6410 CPT → JNB.
