THE LAST GENERATION OF CHAINSMOKERS
Stephen Creagh Uys
"This is Hubert Selby for the MTV generation.
Stephen Uys is a writer who should be taken seriously."
Mark Huddle
Tales of dissipation as literature can be traced
back to the biblical times, probably even further, but it is in 20th century America that those stories emerged as a full-fledged
literary genre. The sources of addiction vary wildly - alcohol, opium, heroin, cocaine, sex - but the stories are remarkably
similar. The protagonist dedicates his or her life to the pursuit of the buzz and is then joined in this semi-religious quest
by fellow addicts who have stumbled along the same path. There is tragedy in the offing.
The stories are always told with gritty
realism, pulling up the mossy rocks of the human condition in order to show readers what is wiggling in the muck beneath.
In the last century, these stories of dissolution proved an effective vehicle for the literary underground to tweak the sensibilities
of the bourgeois mainstream and, in spectacular instances, gain notoriety for their authors. Some of those writers, such as
Fitzgerald, Miller, Bukowski, and Selby were masters of both craft and genre and their works stand as classics. But while
their stories may be comprised of myriad stylistic differences, it is still the same old story.
It is this familiar terrain that is the centerpiece of Stephen Creagh Uys's The Last Generation of Chainsmokers. I
would love to tell you that it is Mr. Uys's characters, Crane King and Kim Anderson, that are that centerpiece, but in these
types of stories, it is always atmosphere and environment that triumph.
Crane and Kim meet in a Greenwich Village bar, The Village Idiot, they get smashed, they have sex. There ensues
what ostensibly could be called a "love affair," although it is booze that more realistically serves as master or mistress.
Uys tells his story
with an episodic narrative structure that bends chronology in order to tell Crane and Kim's stories from varied points of
view. That choice gives the novel a filmic quality. This is Hubert Selby for the MTV generation.
You might imagine
Nicholas Cage and Elizabeth Shue reprising earlier roles for a "Leaving Greenwich Village" prequel.
Stephen Uys is
a writer who should be taken seriously. The Last Generation of Chainsmokers (and Mr. Uys's press-kit) repeatedly references
the Lost Generation and its writers, especially F. Scott Fitzgerald. Uys favors the romantic lyricism of Fitzgerald's fiction.
He loves language and it comes in torrents. If there are moments when the reader wishes for the austerity of a Hemingway instead
of the floweriness of Fitzgerald, Uys's accomplishment is impressive. Despite all the "bad boy" literary posturing, he is
a talented writer.
It is a story well
told.
