Recalling 1980s small towns everywhere and underground music of that era, this debut novel also pays ‘tribute’ to ambitions never achieved, in the form of 26 eye-witness accounts relayed to a fanzine writer of the time, recounting the tale of “the greatest rock group of the modern age or at least of Airdrie”.
But the Lanarkshire town could be any conurbation – Keenan’s debut novel’s appeal will go far beyond fans of the musical genre, painting gaudy, streaky images of graverobbers, aid-workers and drug-dealing nuclear bunker dwellers.
A stylish “Hallucinated Oral History” that will stay with you well beyond the next ’80s revival.
(This review originally appeared in the Motherwell Times)