... [a] wild roar of a novel ... Writing about music is tricky. Ninety-nine percent of the time hearing the actual song or going to the actual concert is far more revealing than any paragraph describing it. But Jackson pulls off this near-impossible feat, pulling the reader past the velvet ropes into the black-box theaters and sweaty, sticky-floored stadiums ... The prose can feel as cool as Rat Pack-era Sinatra and as sad as Lou Reed singing about a perfect day ... For all his insider knowledge and passion for music, Jackson is also at ease writing about the odd details of the everyday.
Destroy All Monsters taps into this fundamental aspect of the human experience, nonbelonging, illustrating how those on the fringe coalesce forming tribes just as difficult to crack and complex as the mainstream groups they are eschewed from ... Jackson paints in sepia tones, his words create a filmy, nicotine-stained haze giving rise to a discordant lifestyle born from the ability to alienate and repel external understanding ... Jackson artfully eliminates distance between action and the reader, hijacking with a propulsive style into real-time dilemmas of belonging, assimilation, acceptance, and attachment ... effectively reveals the dichotomy of loving and hating something simultaneously, a space where what was once embraced and slavishly followed, ultimately becomes reviled, a demon to be exorcised.
The carnage erupts on the opening pages and threatens to continue throughout. Yet Jackson keeps us wondering how the horror will go down. Once or twice the ugly business feels a tad familiar, but far more often the author delivers canny surprises ... Importantly, the violence isn’t political. The novel isn’t cautionary like The Handmaid’s Tale; rather, its rampages could be punk-rock. The killers weasel around security the same way anyone else would, and, if they survive the melee, they linger on the crime scene ... A mere gimmick in lesser hands, Jackson’s twice-told tales 'each absorb and expand the narrative' ... Questions concerning art hang over everything no matter which direction you’re reading ... Even the ecstatic promise of rock winds up another delusion, a monster that someone ought to destroy.
This is no nostalgia trip. You won’t find wistful odes to the scene of the author’s youth. Instead you’ll find violence and contagion leaping from scene to scene, leaving real bodies in its real wake. ... at a moment when the narratives that define our daily lives can seem inflexibly constricting, [Destroy All Monsters sounds downright hopeful.
[An] angst-soaked alienation tale ... punk rock in literary form, this activism allegory will draw fans of Chuck Palahniuk’s raw social commentary and Charlie’s Huston’s haunting, macabre symbolism.
Destroy All Monsters is a hybrid novel, both a celebration of music and a critique of aesthetics when they replace content. ... [Destroy All Monsters] is longer and far more nuanced [than Jackson's previous work], but also deals with young people looking for answers in an ugly world. And looking for answers is what Jackson wants readers to do. This novel is the bustle in your hedgerow. Go decipher it.
... crackingly ambitious ... [The book's form] prepares the reader for a novel that is formally complex, experimental, poetic, puzzling, often uncomfortable, at times dizzying, always alive, beautifully written and just plain daring ... Destroy All Monsters dares pair a most troubling aspect of contemporary life in the United States, mass shootings and the proliferation of guns, with the romantic desire for 'danger' that runs in the blood of rock ’n’ roll... It’s a risky idea, unsettling, and plausibly offensive; one might even call it dangerous. Which is pretty rock ’n’ roll, if you ask me.
Destroy All Monsters understands the impetus to pick up a guitar and strum a power chord, perhaps out of the misguided notion that the result could lead to some change in the world. And the novel understands the disheartening fact that the country is full of numerous small towns like Arcadia, with its dive bars, shuttered factories, and hobo camps, each of them with their would-be punk rockers like Florian. Amid the story’s nationwide epidemic, Jackson’s characters display crucial growth: what ultimately comes to matter––more than selling out concert halls or recording a promising demo––is remaining true to the memory and last wishes of their friends after they’re gone ... Jackson, whose prose registers as punchy and acerbic, leading the reader through multiple act breaks and perspective changes with ease, is sincere in his depiction of provincial youth yearning for an escape. In the 21st century, rock ’n roll might not mean as much as it once did, but Jackson has written a fitting tribute to its lingering spirit.
... Jeff Jackson’s novel is compulsively readable, with the driving energy one would expect from 'the last rock novel' ... Jackson’s novel is a kind of mutant, featuring a world that is recognizable, but not quite our own ... Jeff Jackson’s Destroy All Monsters delivers a similar sensation, combining the deformed sound of an obscure, proto-punk band with the energy of a monster movie battle royal. It maintains a cryptic intrigue, while pursuing the possibilities open to the novel as a form, particularly its ability to incorporate elements from other media. The novel’s use of an A-side and B-side structure is both suited to a warped rock novel, and another reason to reread the work ... Jackson’s book itself is an interrogation of our culture (digital and otherwise), and a successful attempt to make the novel matter again. Destroy All Monsters is a double-sided work looking in two directions at once: toward a history of rock music, and toward the future of the novel.
With so much exposure, so many pings and notifications, boxes full of emails waiting to be annihiliated like weeks, Destroy All Monsters rails against its own titular notion – it’s better to create than destroy. Its sharded optimism is a balm for these increasingly fractious times.
[The book is] wry and dark, timeless but also entirely of our time, though void of any direct references to our Internet 2.0 media-saturated age ... The form itself is wholly unique—divided like an old vinyl, the book has a Side A and a Side B, and can be read either way... This narrative experiment not only works, but truly enriches the reading experience ... But the book itself truly does not rely on its various narrative gymnastics, as the book itself is a marvel to read. The prose is almost mythic, but its deft portrayal of scene culture is incredibly spot-on—neither cynical nor grandiose ... make no mistake, [Destroy All Monsters] is a novel, and as it boasts on the cover, it very well may be the last Rock and Roll novel.
Destroy All Monsters is definitely one that lingers well after closing the last page, but I can’t help but see it as a small painting on a giant canvas. I can’t help but imagine it as being even sharper if it’d been chiseled at a little more, if maybe Side A would have matched the musculature of Side B. On that note, I definitely recommend reading the halves of the book in order. It’s being advertised as working either way you approach it, and that’s true, but when reading Side A first, Side B presents a twist that is too good to spoil. My complaints of length aside, this is still a masterful work by someone I’d dare to call one of the greatest living authors ... Rather than present a clear, one-sided critique of the social climate, Jeff Jackson has done something much more powerful and genuine with Destroy All Monsters: he’s given the readers a mirror.
With two sides that are mysteriously connected, and with its lack of overt explanation, this book may be frustrating for some readers. But it’s exactly Destroy All Monsters’ sense of being open to interpretation that makes it a relevant and chilling depiction of senseless violence today.
An anxious, deeply felt narrative .. Infected with this eerie conceit, and expressed through gritty, sharp prose, the novel provides both deep character exploration and a nuanced commentary on music, creativity, and violence.
A dazed and confused meander ... Jackson portrays the motley scene with a practiced eye, and his prose is linguistically nimble. But there’s an emptiness to this experimental novel ... Not only does the book offer little in the way of resolution, the monotony of the characters makes them virtually interchangeable ... You can see where Jackson is going, but there’s just no edge here ... A rock novel that’s more DOA than DIY.
