Loudmouth
A Novel
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Three Rooms Press
Published:19th Nov '20
Should be back in stock very soon
“Read this book immediately if you like truth, drugs, generation gaps, guitars, and lifelong quests for freedom and kicks.” --Craig Finn, The Hold Steady
Thomas Ransom, born to a severely dysfunctional southern family transplanted to New York City, is left to his own devices by neglectful parents, and spends his childhood shadowing his criminally-inclined half-brother and roaming the city with hard-drinking teenage pals. He eventually finds an outlet as the flamboyant singer of a downtown rock band, and later as the young editor of the Detroit-based magazine that invented punk, only to return to New York, at the height of the 1970s bacchanal, and crash. But it isn’t music that saves him. It’s a soft-spoken painter, who turns out to be the most outrageous character of all. With echoes of Almost Famous and Just Kids, LOUDMOUTH tracks an impassioned musician and writer out among the punks, hippies, and wild geniuses of rock when music was the center of the world.
Author Robert Duncan was barely out of his teens when he started writing for the influential music magazine Creem, becoming its managing editor at 22. He went on to write for Rolling Stone, Circus, Life, and dozens of other publications, interviewing hundreds of rock stars at the top of their game. In the process, Duncan became a rock Zelig: he shares tales of his time with a young, scrawny Bruce Springsteen while driving him around Detroit; he introduces The Clash‘s Mick Jones and Joe Strummer to a broken-down piano player of dubious ability, leading to a hilariously disastrous recording session with the band; he works alongside legendary rock critic Lester Bangs, witnesses his tragic spiral, and finally discovers him dead of an OD in the apartment next door.
These experiences, and many others, provide the fuel for his debut novel, LOUDMOUTH, making it what Brian Jonestown Massacre's Joel Gion calls, “A sonic wail of a tale about the youthful beginnings of one of the Mount Rushmore ‘heads’ of rock ’n’ roll journalism.”
“Loudmouth follows Thomas Ransom, whose Southern family’s relocation to Manhattan results in strange, street-centric childhood. As a teenager Ransom—an almost-exact avatar of his creator Duncan—discovers rock and punk, and becomes a very young editor of a music magazine. (Duncan became managing editor of Creem at age 22.) … Examines an era that saved him from the torpor of his parents’ dysfunction and gave him an appreciation for different paths.” —Lit Hub
“Holy hell, the 1970s...If you’re too young to have experienced that decade but find yourself curious about its bombed-out cities, the rise of punk rock and the national “malaise,” you could do much worse than to start with Robert Duncan’s debut novel, Loudmouth.... If the book reads like hyperrealism (and we do mean hyper), that’s because it hews pretty close to the truths of the era, from the freewheeling boorishness to the stop-sign face-plants of so many drug casualties.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“A fictionalized version of [Duncan's] own tumultuous life story that both pulls on the heart strings and provides a belly full of laughs.” —Rocklife
“A sonic wail of a tale about the youthful beginnings of one of the Mount Rushmore ‘heads’ of rock ‘n‘ roll journalism. I loved it.” —Joel Gion, musician, Brian Jonestown Massacre
“LOUDMOUTH is, as advertised, a loud and brash trip that takes you through the hellish halls of childhood and adolescence before delivering you to the sweet salvation of rock and roll music and all that rides alongside it. The story is majorly compelling--funny, tender, and very very honest. Read this book immediately if you like truth, drugs, generation gaps, guitars, and lifelong quests for freedom and kicks.” —Craig Finn, singer/songwriter, The Hold Steady
“Wow. What a great time for me. I could listen to Robert Duncan’s stories all day.” —Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Option podcast, ex-Saturday Night Live
“Very engaging, fantastic stories and perspectives.” —Ron Keel, rock musician
“This picaresque, coming-of-age novel, about a boy who looks for answers in rock ‘n’ roll, but finds them in the love of an extraordinary woman, is sad, serious, funny and, in the end, ridiculously moving.” —Sylvie Simmons, New York Times bestselling author of Face It: Debbie Harry; Too Weird For Ziggy; and Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes
“Duncan’s prose is amazing, the story entertaining and addictive. If you’re a fan of stories with the Almost Famous vibe, be sure to check this one out!” —All Dragons Read
“A fantastic novel! This book explores the true essence and excitement of '70s rock and 'roll with some outlandish yet lovable characters. A truly memorable work of art! —Bob Nalbandian, Director, Inside Metal Documentaries
“Great stories—you will be hooked.” —Charles Shute, The Chuck Shute Podcast
“Intelligence and grace . . . entertainingly larger-than-life.” —Publishers Weekly
“In prose that’s beautiful, when it’s not hilarious, this noisy, nostalgic novel tells how an excitable boy from a darkly conservative family survived childhood and then rock ’n’ roll. It’s a wild ride with some amazing characters—including a few you might recognize—and I’m in awe.” —Jaan Uhelszki, former Creem editor; writer, producer of Creem: America‘s Only Rock ‘n‘ Roll Magazine
ISBN: 9781941110928
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
248 pages