A Crack Up at the Race Riots [Paperback]

Harmony Korine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 1998

The original Ritalin kid, Harmony Korine burst on the scene with Kids, a film so gritty and unsettling in its depiction of teen life that it was slapped with an NC-17 rating and banned in some theaters across the country. In some ways, the media frenzy over the rating overshadowed the harrowing portrait of teenagers destroying their lives and the then twenty-one-year-old screenwriter who created them. "Whether you see the movie as a masterpiece or as sensationalism," wrote Lynn Hirshberg, "the movie is relentless and brilliant and extremely disturbing. It's powerful-both steel-eyed and sexy; horrifying and captivating."



Now, in this first book of fictional set pieces, Korine captures the fragmented moments of a life observed through the demented lens of media, TV, and teen obsession. Korine reinvents the novel in this highly experimental montage of scenes that seem both real and surreal at the same time. With a filmmaker's eye and a prankster's glee, this bizarre collection of jokes, half-remembered scenes, dialogue fragments, movie ideas, and suicide notes is an episodic, epigrammatic lovesong to the world of images. Korine is the voice of his media-savvy generation and A Crack-Up at the Race Riots is the satiric lovechild of his dark imagination.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Riding a gush of critical acclaim for his work on the films Kids (screenwriter) and Gummo (director), Korine, at the ripe age of 23, attempts to make a novel by using a little bit of everything, but botches the job. What we get, in fact, is more an MTV-style collage of lists, story fragments, indecipherable handwritten notes, crude drawings, photos, dialogue, bad jokes, wordplay and pop culture references to music, movies, drugs and deathall resolutely defying cohesion. Still, there a few identifiable thematic concerns. Suicide tops the list, as frequent references culminate in a group of 11 suicide notes, the last of which begins, ``Mother, I am in love with you.'' Not far behind is a focus on the celebrity life, and in this vein Korine demonstrates a certain breadth of knowledge and interest. A scandal involving silent movie star Fatty Arbuckle is given almost as much attention as the final thoughts of Tupac Shakur, and in between are snippets about Kris Kristofferson, Billie Jean King, Howard Hughes, Matt Dillon, and a cavalcade of others. Jessica Tandy earns especially randy attention (although the motivation behind this is never revealed), and sexual detail pops up in other ways as well, ranging from the incest angle to homophobes planning action. The racial component noted in the title features in a suicide note, and separate photos of the KKK and an unsmiling black boy round out the picture. A final observation notes that ``To feel nothing was peace''perfectly describing the impact of everything in the preceding pages. Neither the voice of a generation nor the ravings of a lunatic, but creative overreaching, clearlythe writing of a talent thrust too soon into the limelight. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From the Inside Flap

The original Ritalin kid, Harmony Korine burst on the scene with Kids, a film so gritty and unsettling in its depiction of teen life that it was slapped with an NC-17 rating and banned in some theaters across the country. In some ways, the media frenzy over the rating overshadowed the harrowing portrait of teenagers destroying their lives and the then twenty-one-year-old screenwriter who created them. "Whether you see the movie as a masterpiece or as sensationalism," wrote Lynn Hirshberg, "the movie is relentless and brilliant and extremely disturbing. It's powerful-both steel-eyed and sexy; horrifying and captivating."

Now, in this first book of fictional set pieces, Korine captures the fragmented moments of a life observed through the demented lens of media, TV, and teen obsession. Korine reinvents the novel in this highly experimental montage of scenes that seem both real and surreal at the same time. With a filmmaker's eye and a prankster's glee, this bizarre collection of jokes, half-remembered scenes, dialogue fragments, movie ideas, and suicide notes is an episodic, epigrammatic lovesong to the world of images. Korine is the voice of his media-savvy generation and A Crack-Up at the Race Riots is the satiric lovechild of his dark imagination.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Main Street Books; 1st edition (April 6, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385485883
• ISBN-13: 978-0385485883
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #988,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars irony, absurdity, tragedy, comedy, harmony, December 26, 2000

By 

D. Butcher "Davide" (East of the Mississippi) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Crack Up at the Race Riots (Paperback)

As has already been pointed out, there's nothing coherent about this book except its own incoherence, its anti-form form. As with most decadent and absurdist literature, the whole is subordinate to the parts, and these parts include nonsensical fragments of conversations, random ideas, bad jokes, suicide notes, and a picture of MC Hammer at age 12. Taken together, they illuminate the bizzare and dark sensibilities of a truly talented and passionate young artist with a sensitive finger on the pulse of this American nation. But don't take them together. Or at least, don't try to fit them together into some meaningful message. There isn't one. Or perhaps rather, in the most absract sense, the message is there is no message. So if you're looking for and are used to a well crafted story and plot that all hangs together nicely, then don't shell out the 15 bones for this (note)book. But, since you're reading this review, you probably already have some familiarity with Harmony's other work (films and whatnot) and will probably like this too. On a slight side note, I noticed that some reviewers felt that Harmony's aesthetic intentions don't translate well into book form. I'm not sure I know completely what all his intentions are, but I think these reviewers make a good point. Korine seems to me to be primarily a visualist (as evidenced by that stupefying tapestry of beauty Gummo), and this book, I think, fails to capture the haunting and poetic imagery Korine is going for, and which he renders so well in the cinematic form. So maybe if I had one word to describe this book, it would be cinematic. But literature doesn't work so well when it tries to be cinematic, that's why it's literature. (And I would go as far as to say vice-versa.) But of course that's something to be discussed and debated, and not here. So in the end, I give it 4 stars, because I enjoy Korine and his imagination.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great book. buy it, January 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Crack Up at the Race Riots (Paperback)

Someone called this a postmodernist novel. I don't think so. It's not a novel. It's an old form, the laundry list appropriated for literary purposes. Narrative glue that normally binds the ideas in a novel is entirely missing. It's like Korine went about recording little snippets of thought and conversations on scraps of paper, then pulled them all together and arranged them by topic like suicide notes, overheard conversations, movie ideas etc. It's like a found object collage. Chapter titles are the only hint at what Korine is thinking.

But ultimately, we're on our own when it comes to tying all the scraps together. It's kind of looking at small tiles on a bathroom floor. Sooner or later you'll start seeing patterns.

But Korine's selection of scraps is not random. Korine collects among the lower classes. He gives the podium to people who don't normally have a voice in our culture, people who may or may not have jobs, people with no concern for political correctness.

And I think that this is where Korine deserves 5 stars. He makes us look at people we don't normally want to look at. He doesn't glamorize them, he doesn't apologize for them. He simply holds up the mirror and makes us look at them. He reminds us that not everyone gets to realize the American dream.

As for postmodernism or new literary forms, I think Korine got something going. Ideas in most modern literature are way too sparse. You have to wade through way too much narrative and plot to get at the few good ideas, insights, images. Korine simply throws out the ideas, images, lets you wander about and create your own picture.

Bless the lad, buy his book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars eminem was in a wendy's commerical when he was 12, March 14, 2003

By 

Cheyla Scantling (jacksonville,florida, usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Crack Up at the Race Riots (Paperback)

crack up at the race riots is part scrapbook, part videologue all in one. pieces of scripts, part conversations, fake rumors and ideas all writen by harmony korine (writer of Kids and writer director of Gummo and Julian Donkey Boy). Sometimes you don't know whether to laugh or wonder if you're the butt of a joke (who pays for half writen lines anyway? me.) but it all ends up nicely. as a peek into the head of a genius.