Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1513797 in Books
• Published on: 1998-10-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Synopsis
Subliminal Kids are Irish boys chasing a rock and roll dream in Thatcher''s London in the late 1980s. Theirs is a story of white punks on dope living in the front line, and of the emergence of the new rave counterculture.'

From the Publisher
original, funny, dangerous
"Inexhaustibly nasty and unputdownable." The Guardian

"A chopped-up stream of consciousness from Kim, the manager of Irish punk band Subliminal Kids, Serious Time digs into the music scene in the 80s and 90s, as hip hop emerges as the main language of the street." The Times

"This is London of the last decade: rough, tough and tuneful, but the true star turn is the prose — a tonic to the bland technique of many current novels." The Pink Paper

"Ambrose cleverly depicts late 80s squat-culture thriving alongside Thatcher’s bill-paying Britain and Brixton’s inter-racial relationships." Scene magazine

"Very compelling." Munster Literature News

Customer Reviews

A Nihilistic, disturbing, funny and moving diary.
Serious Time is written from the perspective of Kim, the manager of a hardcore rock band called The Subliminal Kids.

It is written in the style of a diary and traces the lives of Kim and his close friends and his not-so-close friends through the late 80's and early 90's. Intense realism and gritty visuals make this a disturbing yet often hilarious account of the Brixton scene and its inhabitants. These inhabitants being drug addicts, prostitutes, gangsters, pimps, dealers, squatters and hard-nuts.

Amongst all this grime and crime, there is Kim, Jesse, LX and (bizzarly) the drummer of The Cult fighting their own war against the music industry. Fiction and fact mix, not confusingly but with an audacity that sees real events written hand in hand with fictional ones. There is also the matter of the inclusion of Nigel Preston, the real-life drummer of the huge but terrible band The Cult. In the book, he plays for the Subliminal Kids and also the actual band The Gun Club, which also feature in the book. He dies in the band's HQ, Brixton and the death is fully explained and detailed with Kim (remember, fictional) being at the scene of death and also at the funeral which took place in Brixton in reality too.

This is a volatile novel ranging from intense highs to intense lows. You feel saddened, disgusted, moved and heartened about all the characters and their fates. As Howard Marks has been quoted on the front:
"Beg, borrow or even buy this book".