SPEED READING: Gone to the Wolves / John Wray
Gone to the Wolves
John Wray
FSG
Review by
Noah Sanders
Welcome to Speed Reading, our fast, occasionally flippant, review column where we attempt to spread the love of a recent new release in a very short amount of time. We’ll take the time to find some incredible books, you spend your time reading some incredible books.
So, what’s Gone to the Wolves about?
The hardcore metal scene in small town Southeastern Florida in the early 90s. Also: emotions, relationships and the discovery of who we are as outsiders perpetually existing on the periphery. You know, literary stuff.
And, who’s the author?
John Wray.
What’s his deal?
Wray’s books feel like variations on the theme of escape. Godsend follows a girl who so desperately wants to get out of her hometown she … joins a fundamentalist terrorist organization. The Lost Time Accidents tags along with a heartbroken everyman as he slips out of the structural boundaries of time. And Gone to the Wolves, well, three kids fall into the gaping black hole of metal just to get the hell out of Florida.
Check out his profile of Sunn0))) for The New York Times Magazine for a taste of what you’re getting into with Gone to the Wolves.
What’s a single reason to read Gone to the Wolves?
I know I keep harping on metal, but Jesus, the exploration of the metal scene and the metal sound in this book are absolutely fucking awesome. I don’t typically blast my eardrums with the truly heavy stuff, but Wray’s writing shows me more than a few reasons why I might.
What are a few more reasons to read Gone to the Wolves?
For anyone who’s obsessed about music, boy oh boy, is this a book for you. Wray’s ability to tie his narrative arc to his main character Kip’s discovery-of-metal arc is brilliant. What starts with hair metal ends with Norwegian black metal in a bombed out club in Berlin, and Wray pulls his protagonists (and his readers) through every throbbing screech of it.
I grew up playing Nirvana tapes on repeat, imagining my life through Kurt Cobain’s pained yowls, and very rarely does a writer manage to capture the youthful need to just lose yourself in the same ten songs over and over again.
Finally, any peek I ever get into what actually happens in the humid stank of not-Miami, Florida feels like a gift. John Wray, you have given me a gift.
If you’re a fan of these books, you should give Gone to the Wolves a chance:
The Lost Time Accidents / John Wray
Pulphead / John Jeremiah Sullivan
Everything I Need I Get from You / Kaitlyn Tiffany
A Small Taste of Gone to the Wolves:
The air started strobing, fluttering against his eardrums, like it does in a car with the back windows cracked. This was Kira’s favorite moment: before the first riff, when every possible outcome is conceivable, when the show that you’ve imagined is the only show there is.
