Absolute Beginners

Perhaps you know Julien Temple's mostly terrible '80s movie-musical adaptation, or perhaps you know the Jam's wonderful 1981 hit single by the same name. If you grew up in the UK at a certain time, you likely also knew MacInnes's 1958 novel, the source for all of the above, which has never really crossed over to our side of the Atlantic, despite being somewhere between The Catcher in the Rye and On the Road in its teen spirit and love of outsider culture. Our unnamed narrator is 18 and the sweetest pornographer you'll ever meet, an eager, knowing, and infectiously charming tour guide to the youth culture that's taking over postwar London and to the immigrants, queers, and fellow jazzers he considers his people. His sweetness will be tested by the end of his story (by organized attacks by white gangs based on the Notting Hill Riots); whether it survives, or whether it should, I'll leave for you to decide.