Rock and roll children by Michael LeFevre

2010


Rock and Roll Children is the first novel from Michael LeFevre Michael D. LeFevre although he has published articles and book reviews in the “Times Education Supplement.” Most of Rock and Roll Children is based on his experiences during the 1980’s. The 80's were certainly the golden era of metal in many people's minds including mine. It was great time to be a fan of the music because there was so much material coming out and many great bands hit their peak during the decade. LeFevre's book follows friends Frankie, Bob, Rick and Jeff through the mid late 80's with an emphasis on their love of many different metal acts of the day. Concerts are a major focus of the story and in the introduction LeFevre states that he attended all but three of the concerts mentioned in the book. So he recalls some personal experiences for those parts of the book. The concerts mentioned are many and include a number of top acts of the day including Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Dio and many others. I am actually jealous of the author for getting to see so many great acts of the time. Fans of metal who were living for the music back then will be able to relate to being so excited over these bands and the albums that are mentioned as well those who were fortunate enough to hear the Metalshop show on the radio back in the day. However there are some real problems with "Rock and roll children". It's a very slow read because of several reasons. There is some build-up for every concert the friends attend and the first few times this happens I even felt kind excited. Then they get to the concert and it just reads like a bare bones account. These should major events in the book and they tend to lack the kind of description and detail that would build them up. After each concert was mentioned I felt an empty feeling like there just wasn't enough going on. The same empty feeling hangs over the characters ever more so. They are enjoying the music and following these bands, but it's all rather flat with pages and pages of he did this and he did that. I just never felt attached or very interested in the characters. There is no doubt that the author was a fan because his love of the music comes through right away, but the characters and the story just have the depth to sustain one's interest for 400 and some pages. I think if these entries had been written say in a blog form with each concert being an entry and more details had been provided then I may have been far more interested. The author has real memories and hopefully he keeps writing and working at expanding his ideas and developing his style. As it was this was a tough read to get through.