Originally appeared in Maximum Rocknroll #368 (January 2014).
I remember growing up in the ‘80s. The underground was truly underground, not something you could look up on Google. Discovering a cassette of something like Metallica or Slayer at the local one-stop shopping center was like finding gold, while finding anything by the Misfits or the Sex Pistols was impossible. And if you lived in the outskirts, you probably didn’t even know anything countercultural existed until someone made you a mixtape. Youth culture was in a straightjacket, and it was a struggle to get out of it. Those may have been simpler times, but they were also more dysfunctional. Adults, no matter how irrational, ruled like tyrants. Looking back, it really isn’t that surprising that in the early ‘90s there was a boom of crazy syndicated talk shows airing the country’s dirty laundry. I mean, let’s face it, our parents were nuts.
Kelly Dessaint’s coming of age novel A Masque of Infamy traverses this chaotic period, following teenage Louis Baudrey in the midst of punk’s second wave. Relocating from Southern California with his brother, father and his father’s friend Rick to a small town in Alabama, Baudrey goes through all the troubles in high school you’d expect from an outcast. He’s a punk, a troublemaker, but also a kid just trying to find his people. He searches for affinity and clashes with conformity like any rebellious teen would. Yet, what I thought was going to be a typical novel full of regurgitated hijinks and pranks, turns rather heavy when the truth about Baudrey’s family is unearthed. Baudrey’s formative years are placed over a backdrop of child sexual abuse and child pornography. After the shit hits the fan, Baudrey ends up institutionalized, apparently for having suicidal tendencies. The dirt of the novel really paraphrases the dysfunction of the era. It’s a story that could have easily been on Donahue or the Jerry Springer Show.
What Dessaint does so well with his novel is recreated the teenage worldview. Although Louis Baudrey is based on Dessaint, only an exceptionally talented writer can recreate the mindset of a teenager without becoming a caricature. Over the course of the novel Dessaint pulls this off with Baudrey, building a struggling, stubborn, yet growing character. He never mocks, or belittles Baudrey. He never makes Baudrey into a buffoon, or overcooks Baudrey’s rebellion. He never shames Baudrey for making the wrong choices. Instead he justifies Baudrey’s actions with his personality, as any good writer should.
Demographically, Baudrey is from Generation X, and it shows. He spends his time fighting his way through the selfish irrationality of the 1980s. As someone who grew up during this time it was easy for me to step into Baudrey’s shoes. Not just in the collecting of tapes, the music he listens to, or the things he values, but in the cold, careless, self-centered adult world around him. Baudrey’s father is your classic fuck-up, one who would sacrifice his children to maintain his own level of perverse happiness. But Baudrey’s mother isn’t much better. When she’s confronted with everything that’s happened she asks herself why this has happened to her. That moment stuck with me. It felt like something my own mother would have said. With his depiction of the absurdity of the adults, Dessaint hits the nail on the head. It was like stepping back in time into a nightmare. Yes, for many of my friends it really was as ugly of a picture as Dessaint paints.
Dessaint proves himself to be a persuasive storyteller. He has a direct utilitarian use of language. It’s not poetic, but it helps him build a convincing portrait of the period, a difficult task for any fiction writer who tries to write in the past. He also isn’t afraid to throw the hard stuff in your face, and he doesn’t dance around the issues. But he still entertains you. He get’s you to care about his characters, and about what’s going to happen next. Most importantly, he keeps you wanting to read on. I would probably recommend anything by Kelly Dessaint.