Therapy for a Pop Culture Addict

Tender as Hellfire by Joe Meno


Joe Meno has shocked me with another pop culture novel. There he goes again.

As someone not easily shocked, Mr. Meno has given me things to ponder aimlessly in his books. I've read most of them. This coming from a person who rarely reads for pleasure, he must be a prodigy when it comes to writing intriguing and out-of-place pop novels. Hairstyles of the Damned was fantastic, as was The Boy Detective Fails. But this... this book I can already tell is different. This book is...

Strange...

So it all starts with the back cover. It's like the most highly condensed sparknotes that cover the bare minimum of the plot up until the climax. It's supposed to make you buy the book. This one didn't.

Hairstyles of the Damned was about some kids who shift their lives from punk to grunge, then back to punk again for a brief time. They then dabble in the creative yet non-existent mix of punk/grunge before rebelling into the straight-edge sector, then safely returning to grunge. It also contains explicitly clear instructions on the art of hair dying. It's cliched and within my comfort zone. I loved it. Then there was The Boy Detective Fails. I felt like I was reading something that a young bookworm would buy the exact minute it came out, then stay up all night for the first time while reading said book. It was a mix of the obsessive compulsive detective, Monk, and the autistic main character that I only vaguely remember from the 9th grade outside reading. Something about a dead poodle... but none of this matters. The book as I can remember was fantastic. And as hard as pop-culture-Joe tried to be innovative, his story stayed cliched: just the way it was meant to be.

Tender as Hellfire was different. From the first few pages, I get a vague idea of what it's about. A pair of brothers sits outside an Iowa trailer. Speaking of fistfights and whatnot... I cannot imagine what he means. This, my friends, is not pop. It is not culture. And if I said it was white trash, I would be wrong. This was interesting, yet I wanted nothing to do with it. It was... god forbid... new? There are certain things about which I will admit that I know nothing. I know absolutely nothing about Iowa. I know nothing about what it's like to be a 13 yr old kid getting into fistfights in middle school, or what it's like to live in an aluminum trailer park. I know nothing about their situation, or whether or not they play instruments, or what they're passionate about. I know nothing, and this disturbs me.

What to do?

I put the book back on the shelf where it belongs. Maybe it will get picked up once again.
Once I learn to cope with my pop-culture-xenophobia.

Meno, Joe. Tender as Hellfire. New York: Akashic Books, 2007.