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Human Punk
 
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Human Punk (Paperback)

by John King (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
RRP: £10.00
Price: £9.00 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Usually dispatched within 7 to 11 days.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

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Frequently Bought Together

Human Punk + Skinheads + The Prison House
Total RRP: £26.98
Price For All Three: £22.06

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  • This item: Human Punk by John King

    Usually dispatched within 7 to 11 days.
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  • Skinheads by John King

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  • The Prison House by John King

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Product details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd; First Edition edition (27 April 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0224060481
  • ISBN-13: 978-0224060486
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 958,070 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #41 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > K > King, John

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

In Human Punk, the coming-of-age tale of a Thames valley likely lad, John King yet again delivers an unflinching, frank insight into British male working-class culture. King's best-known previous novels, The Football Factory and England Away, centred on the brutal subject of soccer hooliganism--of the domestic and export variety.

The antihero of Human Punk is Joe Martin: poor white trash from the council estates of Slough. In the novel's first third, set at the "arse-end of the 70s", Joe is a teenage no-hoper into cheap booze and cheaper girls. He's also into the new punk music that has finally percolated down to the Middlesex hinterlands.

King captures Joe's humble yet never-to-be-forgotten adolescent excitements--"the tingle of the cider" and the "smell of Bev's perfume banging into me"--with such empathy and verve that, in its praise, you can't help sensing the autobiographer at work rather than the novelist.

Unfortunately, the following sections of the novel aren't as telling. First it flashes forward to the late 1980s, when Joe is a backpacker returning to Blighty, as the prodigal son, on the Trans-Siberian railway; then it moves on to glitzy New Labour London of the millennium, where Joe is a moneymaking DJ. Throughout it all Joe broods on a childhood incident when a friend was nearly drowned, and the solving of this "puzzle"--his pal's fate--is what provides the book with its denouement. However, these later sections fail to grip the reader as it is difficult to afford the older, harder Joe the same sympathy one gave his youthful incarnation, and without such identification the whole book lacks psychological Semtex.

Fans of King's bleak, staccato, first-person narratives will not be disappointed by his now familiar but explosive insights into the male psyche.--Sean Thomas

Product Description

For Joe the summer of 1977 meant punk rock, fun and violence. Fast forward to 1988 and Joe is on the Trans-Siberian express coming to terms with his best mate's suicide back in 1977. In the present Joe still has to come to terms with Smiles's death.

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Human Punk
69% buy the item featured on this page:
Human Punk 4.4 out of 5 stars (17)
£9.00
Skinheads
12% buy
Skinheads 4.2 out of 5 stars (5)
£4.97
The Prison House
9% buy
The Prison House 3.6 out of 5 stars (8)
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The Football Factory
6% buy
The Football Factory 4.2 out of 5 stars (23)
£4.48

 

Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Great start, good middle, poor end, 8 Aug 2002
By Stephen Newton (Manchester, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Human Punk (Paperback)
It's a great shame that King allows this book to deteriorate so much in the last part, because the first two thirds are genuinely brilliant. The frustrated young teenagers on London's doorstep, desperate to take part in the late 1970s punk revolution are sketched to perfection.

Skip forward to that trans-Siberian train journey and King starting to lag, although the Moscow sequence is superb.

Skip forward to Britain in 2000 and King's completely lost his way. It doesn't matter that the main character and narrator, Joe, hasn't moved on or developed along some artificial character arc, but all the other characters have transformed into wood and speak with the same voice (Joe's). The pop culture references that placed the first part so firmly in the 1970s disappear, Joe is supposedly a DJ; he plays the Clash and Sex Pistols and 'some of the up-to-date stuff', whatever that may be.

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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brought it all back, 5 Jun 2001
By A Customer
I saw Human Punk in a local book shop, I usually browse around and wait for something to jump out at me. On this occassion this did. And am I glad that it did. I moved to London in 1977, from Birmingham, and was for a better description, a Punk. John Kings book brought back so many memories and feelings, I was spooked at times. Split into three parts, the first, end of school days and the scene in and around Slough, is by far the most powerful. It really sums up what was happening at that time. The music, the politics, the day-to-day rumblings and speeding of life. I found a lot of what the 'hero' of the story, Joe, was thinking and doing rang bells way back in my mind. The second part, his journey back from the Far East to Slough, is one long train ride. And that is how it feels. With not much to do and plenty of time, Joe is forced to look back over his life and evaluate where he is, where he has come from and where and why he is returning. Part three is smack bang up to date - year 2000. Back in Slough and more worldly wise, we pick up the pieces of the other two parts. And yet again it rings so true. The sub-culture, again the music and political reflections. I haven't finished it yet so can't comment on how it will all come together. But if you want a great read buy this book. Buy two, because if you lend it out you won't be getting it back.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Starts very well but tails off substantially., 20 Mar 2002
By J. Dennis "jdd247" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Human Punk (Paperback)
The bits of this book about the young lad growing up in the late seventies are very good and evoke the feel of that era well. However, King is not so accurate in his depiction of the eighties and year 2000 and the story and storytelling reflect this. There is little of interest in the last third of the book and the writing becomes very flat - as if the writer himself knows he's finished the exciting parts he wanted to write about. My biggest gripe was that towards the end I found that all the people in the book by the end it was hard to distinguish between the characters because King had stopped giving them their own identities and ways of expressing themselves and made them cliched two dimensional half people devoid of much interest. This is sad because the book is probably just about worth a read for the first third alone.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant!
absolutely loved this novel as i am in my late 30's and was very young during the 1st wave of punk and was converted during 2nd wave this book gave me an idea of what the scene... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Brendan Heffron

5.0 out of 5 stars john king- human punk
such a brilliant, brilliant book, i cannot recommend this book strongly enough. i bought it as a book to travel with and could not put it down. Read more
Published on 3 May 2003 by naughtynik20

4.0 out of 5 stars identifiable
This reader is 2 young to remember the era of the first part of the novel but the 3 segments tie in nicely-i especially enjoyed the 26 year old Joe's odyssey returning to england... Read more
Published on 21 Feb 2002

1.0 out of 5 stars one third of a good book
John King's memories of summer 1977, when Punk Rock exploded into public consciousness and threatened briefly to give the music industry the kick in the groin it so richly... Read more
Published on 23 Dec 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Great
I bought this at the airport for a holiday read and didn't expect anything from it. What I got was a real experience - a story of youth, middle age, guilt and memory. Read more
Published on 18 Nov 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Brought it all back
I saw Human Punk in a local book shop, I usually browse around and wait for something to jump out at me. On this occassion this did. And am I glad that it did. Read more
Published on 17 Aug 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars King keeps getting better
I loved this book. I'm not English, and I'm still in my 20s but the prose was as real as anything I've come across. Read more
Published on 8 Aug 2001 by thormcrae@hotmail.com

5.0 out of 5 stars a tremendous read!
I bought this book purely on title and brief"blurb". What an amazing story told by a matured man looking back on his teen years. Read more
Published on 22 July 2001 by dkp999@aol.com (david pintar)

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read for Punks Young and Old
I read this book in the early summer of 2000. I picked it up because the title jumped out at me. At closer inspection, the book was about a kid, like me (except the main character... Read more
Published on 19 Jun 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Read, One Mans Life With Music
This book is one you cant put down...

It follows a young punk growing up in Slough 1977, and his friends who enjoy nothing more than a cheap pint, a quick ruck and a look at the... Read more

Published on 10 April 2001 by Nexus

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