Customer Reviews

Please Step Back

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The author is clearly channeling his own invented lead character in his phrasing; Please Step Back is a punchy, sweeping rush through the 60s and 70s, following the cliche-by-now arc of a funkadelic rock star's rise to the top of the charts and world domination.

The story is surprisingly deep and fresh, but misses on one note: the female characters are cliche and uninteresting, assuming mostly passive roles of sex acts or pining inaction. They are groupies or madonnas, sluts or domestic stowaways of affection. Since at least 1/3 of the book follows the emotions of introspective love interest Betty, couldn't she have a presence as strong as Rock Foxx's? Or would that ruin the pacing?

Regardless, these slow stretches end quick, and then the beat resumes.

I bought this book after hearing a plug on NPR. Then I had to plug away to get through it. Personally, I found the prose staccato and superficial, and I was never able to connect with the characters. Hard to think you can go wrong with a book on sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, but this one has a style not everyone will appreciate.

Ben Greenman's "Please Step Back" takes us through the life of a true funk-rock heavyweight, a Vietnam-era star named Rock Foxx who blends the musical stylings of Miles Davis, Phil Spector, and Sly Stone with the unfettered debauchery of Jimmy Page and Motley Crue. Greenman's encyclopedic knowledge of the music and culture of the sixties and seventies emanates from every pore of "Please Step Back"; his fictional character, Rock Foxx, seems not only plausible but exceedingly real, in no small part because of Greenman's ability to recreate the tumult and passion of the era.

Yet fame is fleeting. Foxx succumbs to the same tragedy that befell so many before him: an inescapable snowball of sex, drugs, and fame. And it continues to today. As of only two years ago, Britney Spears had fizzled, her popularity tapering off dramatically from that of her previous, turn-of-the-century self. Radiohead's 1995 album "The Bends" predicted (albeit incorrectly) that the band would rise too fast to survive, like a surfacing deep-sea diver. And yet, although mega-music stars aren't the most sympathetic characters around, it is hard not to feel some amount of empathy for people that become trapped in a uncontrollable lifestyle and environment. This holds all the more true for Rock Foxx. First you're curious about him, then you cheer him on, then you idolize him, and, finally, you empathize with him. A true rollercoaster journey is lying in the pages of "Please Step Back."