Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock

Matt Bissonnette’s debut novel, Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock, offers us a look into the lives of five friends growing up in the sex, drugs and punk rock culture of Montreal in the 70s and 80s. The NDG of Bissonnette’s youth serves as richly textured backdrop to a gloomy, frenetic atmosphere punctuated with moments of abrupt humour. The chapters read like the songs the kids worship – short, dirty and hard-hitting, Bissonnette shying away from nothing with his biting prose.

In their own words and their own language, the narratives the kids take turns telling come from some of the most profound and sometimes most mundane moments of their lives. Constantly testing their own limits and those of society, they expose their flaws and fears to the reader. These stories are often shocking, but sometimes heart-staggeringly honest as the friends struggle to make sense of what taking on responsibility for their lives and futures really means.

Over the course of the book, each of the friends learns that they cannot deny their natures, and their antics bear this out repeatedly. The seemingly blind acceptance of that fact is often belied by their frantic inner struggle to break away and finally do something that would liberate them from their bleak existence. Though they often have no idea what shape their future should have or what form the liberation might be, they at least grow to recognize that the future is manifest and that they must keep on, despite often not knowing why or how.

Not a cozy, night-time read, this book is stark yet persuasive in its depiction of youth culture. It is a compelling, candid journey of five childhood friends coming to terms with their own existence, each other, and society…all while trying to stay true to themselves.