The Stanton Park Book Review

Just a quick update. The Taqwacores, that we reviewed last summer, has been made into a movie. Here is the official website. Also the trailer...

Written by Robert Greenfield, this book had all the potential in the world. At SPBR we love to read about drunken dabauchery, drugs and sex but there has to be something more to the story. Minimally, a point.

There are a few interesting points, from page 54:

"And she is just so nice, with sunshine sweetness shining through her eyes that he (security) lets her on the plane.

She goes right over to Mick and coos, 'Are you Mick Jagger?' and when he nods yes, she pulls a sheaf of papers out of her bag and says 'I'm hereby serving you, Michael Phillip Jagger, with the following...' and reads off a list of subpoenas all having to do with Altamont.

The next thing anyone knows, the sweet lady come rocketing unsteadily down the airplane stairway screaming, 'He hit me, he hit me.'

Also from page 68:

"...when Keith Richards stumbles into the room, gasps, 'Jo... Jo... Jo... I've got to...' takes two more steps and crashes head-first into the middle of the table. There's this sharp intake of breath all around as though someone's been stabbed in the heart then Keith spring back upright, smiles and continues talking. 'I've got to ask you about the hotel rooms...'

Unfortunately, there isn't much beyond the drinking and drugging stories. The book lacks insight into the band members or even insight into what it is like to travel with the biggest band in the world at the time in the heart of America.

Osama Van Halen is the sequel to Michael Muhammed Knight's Taqwacores and it lives up to the first book. Originally the Stanton Park Book Review had some trepidation about the novel because the back of the book states, “Things turn existential when Ayyub finds himself face-to-face with his creator- no, not Allah, but the author himself.” But Knight is able to keep his humor while being self-referential and he avoids becoming the main story.

One of the ways that the book doesn’t become too serious is the use of zombies. From page 54;

“Thanks bro,” said Ayyub. “I tried telling that one dude that I wasn’t a fuckin’ homo. I could have handled him myself, but then these other guys… I don’t know what happened, man! They were in a fuckin’ metal band and I was driving their van. I didn’t think they’d turn out like that.”
“They weren’t trying to have sex with you,” said Basim. “They were zombies. They overtook this mosque weeks ago. I thought I had gotten then last of them, but I guess there was one left. And he got to your friends.”
“They weren’t my friends; I was just driving their van. I’m not a homo…”
“Listen, you goddamned homophobe, I’m telling you, they were zombies.”

Like the Taqwacores, Osama has compelling thoughts on Islam. From page 93;

“Islamo-chic, bro. Marxism’s not the language of resistance anymore; you have to change with the times. Listen to these goofball white kids in kefeyyehs, telling all their little anarchist friends that now it’s Islam versus capitalism, the last line of defense against U.S. hegemony is a solid worldwide ummah (community of believers). They answer the cruel meat industry with Islamic zabiha dictates, racism with Malcolm’s hajj, the commodification of female bodies with hijab. As our government fucks up more and more in Muslim countries, you’ll see a steadily developing stream of leftist Islamophile poseurs.” [said Al Rukn]

All in all, Knight has written another witty book with references to Islam that have the reader want to learn more about a religion that most people in the U.S. don’t know about.

Matthue Roth's Losers is a fun read from start to finish. The main character, Jupiter Glazer, is a Russian immigrant who is trying to negotiate the pit falls of his first year in high school. As side from the normal social awkwardness of high school, Jupiter has to deal with a bully named Bates who is determined to turn him into a human pancake. From the first chapter:

“Like I said,” my attacker (Bates) said, blubbery and full of spit and bile. “You went and got real lucky. This new locker of yours is prime real estate. So I guess your locker is our locker now, right?” Somewhere behind him, a crony of his belched up a laugh.
I decided that the path of least resistance would be to simply agree. Although my shoulder blades were currently at angles which I didn’t think were possible. I did my best attempt to shrug them.
…There were other lessons I learned on my own in my fourteen years of life on this planet Earth, spanning two continents, ten thousand miles, and countless school bullies. For example, when two hundred pounds of man-flesh come at you with an attitude and an agenda, it is the ideal moment to start adjusting your point of view.

This book reminds the review of the band Weezer. Like the band, Jupiter isn’t cool. At all. But both of them have a way to relating to people because they don’t have room to be judgmental or they risk having the spotlight turned on them. Also, they are amusing and vulnerable in a sincere way.

From the end of the fifth chapter:

Café au lait was just coffee with milk but somehow it always tasted better than when I tried pouring milk into my regular coffee - some sort of barista magic that only those professionally trained in the ways of the coffeehouse could bring about. I wanted to take out my journal and write - following the example of the plurality of the folks in the coffeehouse - but, I realized ashamedly, I didn’t have a journal.

So give Losers a read and look back to the days of your youth when you knew everything about everything (besides how to act, what you really want, who you like like etc.).  

Here are three books that we couldn't finish. Because we didn't review these books, we included links to them on Amazon if you are interested in reading them.
The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno- SPBR has had a long love affair with Joe Meno's writing and this one may end up with a review in the future.
Apples by Richard Milward- This is a good book and maybe a younger SPBR would have enjoyed this more but stories of youth hooking up and doing drugs in clubs seems very foreign to us now.
Once You Go Back by Douglas Martin- This book is well written and easily the saddest book that has ever been sent to the review. In fact, it was too sad for us to finish.