Minstrels [Paperback]

Michael Hemmingson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 1997

Albert: an American who fell from grace in Paris. All he wanted was to find his old love and start life over again. But bomb-crazy terrorists, hackers, and assassins got in the way. Then he killed someone in self-defense. Then Euro TV stepped in and stuck a camera in his head. Then his lover joined a goth-synth rock band. Too much was happening too quickly. This is avant-pop- gone haywire in a weird, wired world, written by post-postmodernism's bad boy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: Permeable Press; 1st edition (February 15, 1997)
• ISBN-10: 1882633237
• ISBN-13: 978-1882633234
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,819,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Hemmingson lives in southern California and Baja California. Michael Hemmingson writes and publishes books, stories, essays, and ethnographic research projects. Michael Hemmingson writes and sells screenplays and film treatments. Michael Hemmingson has been pegged as a novelist, playwright, cultural anthropologist, sociologist in the symbolic interactionism school, auto-ethnographer and criminal scalawag. Michael Hemmingson has been associated with the minimalist Gordon Lish School of Writing. Michael Hemmingson has been accused of being a writer of crime noir literature. Michael Hemmingson has been labeled an author of literary erotica. Michael Hemmingson has been cast into the waters of the AvantPop School of Prose Writing. Michael Hemmingson has edited anthologies, zines, and newspapers. Michael Hemmingson has composed literary criticism and collected ethnographic data in the qualitative inquiry school of social science research. Michael Hemmingson has written speculative fiction and weird westerns. Michael Hemmingson sometimes dashes off a poem. Michael Hemmingson is not Michael Hemmingson. Michael Hemmingson is Michael Hawthorne.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Shockingly banal., February 13, 2007

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Jose Jones - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Minstrels (Paperback)

After reading "Nice Little Stories Jam-Packed with Sex and Violence" and "My Dream Date (Rape) With Kathy Acker," the one thing I never thought Hemmingson could do was bore me. But he did that plenty with the tedious "Minstrels."

The story finds an American in Paris hooking up with a French woman he fell in love with a few years back while she was in the States.

His girlfriend Veronique's friend, Alexander, belongs to a terrorist group who want an undetermined revolution in Europe.

Albert, the American, finds himself involved with the terrorists, and then ends up in jail after killing Alexander in self-defense.

The book takes a truly odd turn as Albert, as part of a deal he cuts with a huge television company (which apparently is more powerful than the government -- or actually runs the government -- and can get him out of jail), lets them implant a fiber-optic eye-camera into his head to film his life as a reality TV show.

This novel is boring and cliche beyond description. It is filled with insipid dialogue and tepid, simplistic prose. It's so weirdly hackneyed and obvious that you wonder if it's ironic, but I don't think it is. There are also juvenile touches -- like having each chapter the name of a Camus novel and having the main character named Albert.

The attack on the media is a weak one. Since this book was written in 1997, Hemmingson certainly predicted the reality-TV nightmare that was to come, but he didn't come up with anything to do with this vision.

I was frankly shocked by how flat and dull this book was. There's no hint of the author I've read in his other works to be found here.

A disappointing, insignificant work by a very talented author.