Kill Your Friends

September 15, 2008
With the record industry in turmoil, this thoroughly twisted roman à clef from a former A&R insider couldn’t seem timelier. Set in 1997, this debut novel follows the loathsome and morally bankrupt 27-year-old Steven Stelfox as he curses, drinks and snorts his way through a cutthroat career. Crass and bitter, Steven despises everything that originally inspired him, and as the bills pile up from his various illicit habits and ventures, he tries in vain to find the “next big thing” so he can secure another bundle of money. Satirizing Big Music, the novel brims with self-evident truths—as Steven explains, he usually only hits one in every 10 acts, but even that allows him to do better than most. As Steven’s arrogance precariously struggles against a healthy dose of paranoia, he faces his ultimate nightmare: he might actually have to sober up, do some work and break out a decent record by a decent act. This is not for the easily offended, but readers with at least a slightly deranged bent will have a ball.

October 15, 2008
This debut novel takes a withering look at the British musicbusinessinthe late 1990s, duringthe hedonistic last gasp of a dying industry. Steven Stelfox is an A & R man with a major label whois desperately searching for his next hitwhen he isnt inhaling Bloody Marys, doing massive quantities of cocaine, or watching porn. Hes all but given up on the angry black rapper Rage, who is working on his concept album;instead, hesfocused ona group of Spice Girls wannabes, the worst sort of sink-estate, single-mother, benefit-fraud trash imaginable. And their music? The biggest insult to humanity since a roomful of Nazis first cooed over the blueprints for Auschwitz. Contemptuous ofmusicians, the public, and, most of all, any colleagues who show signs of working hard, Stevenprepares to save himselfwith a murderously ambitiousplan to be named the head of A & R.Niven, who spent 10 years working in the music industry, uses his insider knowledge and a racist, misogynistic lead character to produce a very dark, viciously funnynovel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)