STEPHEN CREAGH UYS

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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. But if the story is old, even stale, 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.

 

 

 

 

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 THE LAST GENERATION OF CHAINSMOKERS

COPYRIGHT © 2004, 3 A.M. MAGAZINE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I am not from New York. I don't "get" it. I mean, Seinfeld was funny and everything, but I'm about a billion miles away from New York here in the frosty Canadian city of Calgary, and if there's one thing I get, it's that things there and things here are often very different.

I asked to review The Last Generation of Chainsmokers solely because it had a great name. I knew it was a tale of love-struck woe in New York, but the title was whimsical and sad all at the same time, and I wondered if the book would be able to match that tone all the way through. It did.

I found that my image of the characters had to change quite substantially as the story progressed and the details of their lives were fleshed out a bit. But all that aside, it was exactly what I had expected… a fine, sometimes light and sometimes sad tale of love in the big apple.

It's that special kind of love that centers heavily on alcohol and the bird in the hand. It's that practical sort of love that we all wish we didn't have, but at least on some level can directly relate to. It's Kimberly and Crane, two very damaged souls holding hands in a landslide.

The story focuses mostly on Crane, the terminal slacker who seems casually amused watching his life leave him for sunnier climes. It's honestly a little hard to relate to him for most of us. He's like a calm Sid Vicious burning out on center stage. But there is a warmth and depth to him, and from time to time you cannot help but feel for him.

Kimberly, on the other hand, is a practical everywoman. She's the sort of lady who has dreamed of better, accepted worse, and is now muddling through the trouble of being comfortable with her loser of a life. From the time the two meet to the end of the book, it's never boring listening to the thoughts inside their heads.

This book wasn't my style by any stretch, but I knew that going into things and found that I did enjoy it in the end. I think I might have understood it on a deeper level if I could have related more to the characters, but all things considered it was a fun read. And while there were definitely some moments that I found hard to get past in the book, when it was done I was glad to have read it.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Jim Martin is one of 3AM 's Chief Editors. He is also a computer programmer, writer, and fronts the unknown punk band Johnny Incognito .