Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel (P.S.) [Paperback]

Neal Pollack (Author)

Book Description

Series: P.S. | Publication Date: September 21, 2004

The most important document in the history of rock 'n' roll since the liner notes to Killroy Was Here.(This paperback includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested readings, and more.)

Never Mind the Pollacks, the first novel from acclaimed humorist Neal Pollack, is an epic history of rock-and-roll told through the eyes of two rival rock critics. The novel spans the decades from the 1940s to the present day, and includes such real-life characters as Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Bruce Springsteen, Joey Ramone, Patti Smith, Kurt Cobain, and many more. Pollack deploys his trademark roasting of literary pomposity, but his narrative transcends mere parody to become full-fledged social satire. He takes on the icons of popular music and their biographers, true-life rock books and historical fiction. There has never been a book quite like this one, particularly since it contains more than two-dozen original songs written by the author.

The life story of the book's main character, "Neal Pollack," is uniquely American. The only son of Jewish immigrant parents, he shows an aptitude early in life for rock criticism. Prodded by the legendary Sam Phillips and haunted by a ghostly, mysterious blues man, deeply disturbed by his mother's illegitimate marriage to Jerry Lee Lewis, he leaves his Memphis boyhood behind to become a folk troubadour in Greenwich Village. Six broken hearts, two liver transplants, and a lot of cocaine orgies later, he meets his ultimate destiny in a surprise ending that will shock anyone who wasn't paying attention to the early chapters. With Never Mind the Pollacks, Neal Pollack establishes himself as one of the most important novelists of his generation who isn't named Jonathan.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his latest satiric bid for immortality (after The Neil Pollack Anthology of American Literature: The Collected Writings of Neal Pollack), humorist Pollack details the life of a famed rock critic named, predictably, Neal Pollack, and takes swipes at scores of legends along the way. Styled as a series of interviews by rival rock critic Paul St. Pierre, conducted after Pollack's untimely death, the novel charts the history of Neal, born Norbert Pollackovitz in 1941 Memphis, Tenn. Norbert's love for music is evident early on, and soon he and neighborhood pal Elvis Presley are making noise in town. When Elvis accidentally backs over Norbert's father with a truck, Norbert is on his own and is christened Neal Pollack by his pals; he soon flees town to discover the world. St. Pierre's progress in examining the life of the "grizzled monster" is slow until he visits Bob Dylan in Woodstock, N.Y. As Dylan tells it, he met Pollack in 1961, at Woody Guthrie's bedside. The incorrigible Pollack goes on to steal Joan Baez away from Dylan and then moves to Liverpool to become a star rock critic. By the mid-'70s, Pollack returns to Manhattan; Johnny Rotten, Iggy Pop, David Bowie and, later, Kurt Cobain make cameos. Saturated with original song lyrics and pop-up appearances by rock music's greatest legends, Pollack's novel has a swinging appeal. Not everyone will want to tune in for the author's manic tongue-in-cheek self-canonization-his kitchen-sink approach sometimes makes for garbled reading-but Spinal Tap fans and groupies everywhere will be delighted.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Billed as "a rock-'n'-roll novel"--"rock-'n'-roll-critic novel" is probably more accurate--Pollack's foray into fiction isn't that much of a leap from his fictitious essays written by his alter ego, the "Greatest Living American Writer," Neal Pollack (The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, 2002). In his first novel, he tells the story of a late, great rock critic also named Neal Pollack. Pollack, the character, was a self-destructive, prescient, loose cannon of a critic (not unlike Lester Bangs) who was discovered by Sam Phillips in 1951, several years before he discovered Elvis Presley. In fact, Pollack was instrumental in getting Elvis to Sun studios for his first recordings (later he wrote about Elvis in 'zines) and, it turns out, in launching the careers of Dylan, the Stones, Iggy Pop, and Kurt Cobain. Iconoclastic, sometimes hilarious, and always mean-spirited, Pollack (the novelist) spares no one in his satirical jeremiad aimed at popular music and the critics who take it so seriously. Benjamin Segedin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (September 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060527919
• ISBN-13: 978-0060527914
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,441,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars pretty vacant, July 29, 2005

By 

Rachel E. Pollock (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel (Hardcover)

Never Mind the Pollacks by Neal Pollack is alternately brilliant and trash, and if you are at all into the history of rock music, Thompsonian mania, sex, drugs, puking on shoes, f**king the establishment, riding the snake to the lake, and flipping birds or wearing sunglasses in every photograph ever taken of you, definitely read this book.

At the very least it's good for some seriously hard laughs, and even when he fails at what he's doing, it's like seeing your favorite band play a bad show--you still get the gist of what he was going for, and as is true with rock-and-roll in general, you just can't be on all the time.

Now, i'm going to go puke up 8 martinis and pass out cold.

Note: I am no relation to Mr Pollack. My surname has two O's.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like Sam Phillips, In Search Of The White Wail, November 5, 2003

By 

J. D. Finch (Kerouac Country, New England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel (Hardcover)

Rock and roll is the people's music and in Never Mind The Pollacks, A Rock And Roll Novel by Neal Pollack, Neal Pollack, the critic, bounces off the people who make the music to always hilarious and often pointed effect.

When he stops bouncing he usually finds himself down and out, yet luckily beneath the soft white underbelly of the holy cow of rock and roll, its teats thankfully there to squirt its rejuvenating fluids into Pollack's grateful face. That and he's watched over by the magic bluesman, Clambone, as enigmatic yet down to earth as the blues itself.

Pollack often seems oblivious to his journey through rock, while we are fortunate enough to enjoy the likes of Elvis, Iggy, Dylan, The Stones, et al as they pass through the zonked out haze that is Pollack's world. But hey, that world is rock and roll.

Don't think Pollack is some insignificant Forest Gump-like character batted around existence like one of Gump's ping-pong balls: Pollack is important enough that another rock critic wants to write his biography. And though it seems the lame and effete Paul St. Pierre may never truly grasp Pollack's importance or meaning to the world they both inhabit, a final face off with his subject gives him a double shot of the rock and roll life that Pollack has lived and St. Pierre has only written about from a distance.

But screw the analyses. If you like to rock and like to laugh you can do both of these things until it hurts. Plus there's an apocalypse at the end. And it's not just some damn high school blowing up or something.

So, I rate Never Mind The Pollacks #1. With a bullet.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like a Clam (With a Bone in It), October 8, 2003

By 

R. Diener (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel (Hardcover)

Never Mind the Pollacks is just like every other sanctimonious book that tells the history of rock 'n' roll and why we're supposed to care, but with one significant difference: this one is actually entertaining. I read it straight through in the course of one very empty day, which, in retrospect, probably was not a great idea, as this is a thing to be savored, but I couldn't help myself. I tried, Lord how I tried, but I simply could not help myself. So, if you're the least bit interested in the history of rock, or just enjoy being amused, or like seeing various icons skewered with needle-sharp wit, or merely enjoy buying things, this is the book for you!