Loudmouth: A Novel by Robert Duncan

$15.00

Description

Thomas Ransom is not the first of his generation to imagine rock ’n’ roll as a way out. But he takes it to the extreme. At 18, he becomes an outrageous singer in seventies’ New York. A couple years later, he finds himself editor of the scrappy Detroit magazine that invented punk. All this, despite being raised in an unreconstructed Southern family ferociously determined to make him something else.Inspired by the author’s experience as a musician and former editor of Creem, LOUDMOUTH tracks an impassioned young seeker finding his way among the punks, hippies, and wild geniuses of rock when music was the center of the world. With echoes of Almost Famous and Just Kids, LOUDMOUTH is a novel about growing up while falling down.
LOUDMOUTH: A Novel
by Robert Duncan; Trade Paper Original; 248 pages;

ISBN: 978-1-941110-92-2; $15; October 6, 2020


High Praise for Loudmouth

“A sonic wail of a tale about the youthful beginnings of one of the Mount Rushmore ‘heads’ of rock ‘n’ roll journalism. I loved it.” —Joel Gion, musician, Brian Jonestown Massacre

“LOUDMOUTH is, as advertised, a loud and brash trip that takes you through the hellish halls of childhood and adolescence before delivering you to the sweet salvation of rock and roll music and all that rides alongside it. The story is majorly compelling—funny, tender, and very very honest. Read this book immediately if you like truth, drugs, generation gaps, guitars, and lifelong quests for freedom and kicks.” —Craig Finn, singer/songwriter, The Hold Steady

“This picaresque, coming-of-age novel, about a boy who looks for answers in rock ‘n’ roll, but finds them in the love of an extraordinary woman, is sad, serious, funny and, in the end, ridiculously moving.”  —Sylvie Simmons, New York Times bestselling author of Face It: Debbie Harry; Too Weird For Ziggy; and Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes

“In prose that’s beautiful, when it’s not hilarious, this noisy, nostalgic novel tells how an excitable boy from a darkly conservative family survived childhood and then rock ’n’ roll. It’s a wild ride with some amazing characters—including a few you might recognize—and I’m in awe.’”—Jaan Uhelszki, former Creem editor; writer, producer of Creem: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine


About Author Robert Duncan

Photo by Roni Hoffman

At 22, Robert Duncan was managing editor of the legendary Creem magazine, working in Detroit alongside his friend Lester Bangs. He has contributed to Rolling Stone, Circus, Life, and dozens of other popular publications. He was lead singer, songwriter, and producer for several rock bands, including 3DayBig&Tall. He is author of The Noise: Notes from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Era; Kiss, a tongue-in-cheek biography; and Only the Good Die Young, a collection of profiles of dead rock stars. He was story consultant and interview subject for the documentary, Creem: America’s Only Rock & Roll Magazine, which premiered at SXSW in 2019. He is anthologized in Springsteen on Springsteen and Patti Smith gave him a shout-out in her memoir, Year of the Monkey. His poetry has been published in several issues of Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art (Three Rooms Press). He is founder of the advertising and design firm Duncan Channon and its Tip Records subsidiary. He was raised in a Southern family displaced to New York City and now lives with his wife, the artist and rock photographer Roni Hoffman, near San Francisco. LOUDMOUTH is his first novel.

Additional information

Fiction

Coming of Age, Rock, Punk