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Rage Is Back (2013)

by Adam Mansbach(Favorite Author)

3.55 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0670026123 (ISBN13: 9780670026128)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Viking Adult

review 1: I normally don't write reviews, a book is either good or bad.....this book was just odd! It was a cool concept, a son reuniting with his long lost father and learning about who he was (a graffiti artist) and the life he used to lead. The writing style sucked. So much slang and lingo that it was hard to understand what was going on. Then they added a time warp and drug hallucinations into it, and it just lost me. Im still trying to get through it because I hate to put a book down, but it is just so weird its hard to follow.
review 2: This is a terrific book that offers a fascinating look inside the world of the graffiti artists. The author has an impressive breadth of knowledge of this world, along with hip-hop music, but unlike some authors (like Michael C... morehabon in Telegraph Avenue) that knowledge never seems to be show-offy, and always works in service of the story. I can't say I always fully understood all the urban slang, but I never felt too confused to follow the story and the funny, quick repartee that's exchanged between the characters. The novel has a great protagonist as narrator - the superbright teenaged Dondi, who was abandoned by his legendary graffiti artist father, Rage, and was raised by his tough-talking mother, Karen. After getting expelled from a private school for selling pot, Dondi is left with not much to do until his father arrives back on the scene, determined to protest the political rise of a Transit Authority cop who is now running for mayor. Back in the heyday of graffiti writing, that cop killed a member of Rage's crew, and after a prolonged effort to let all of NYC know through his art on trains, Rage went underground and spent time with shamans in South America - leaving Dondi without a father for most of his youth, a fact Dondi can't help but resent even while all the people he knows through the graffiti world worship his father as a legend. There is one crazy fantastical element to the story - a building staircase that lets you jump 24 hours into the future - but for the most part it's a straightforward and brilliantly clever tribute to a bygone era and an attempt by a global band of graffiti writers to resurrect the golden days in an effort to undermine the candidacy of that rogue cop. By the way, if you have the opportunity to see Mansbach for a reading, be sure to go. My wife and I had the good fortune to see him at Brookline Booksmith in MA. He puts on a funny and entertaining show, and has a great, sarcastic wit, while fully respecting his audience. less

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