Oh dear.
At first I want to apologise because this is going to be more of a rant than a review, but fuck... I just really hated this book.
I didn't go into this with particularly high hopes thanks to vague knowledge of the film that was regarded as 'average at best' and I think it is safe to say that those hopes were not met. Touted as the 'American Psycho' of the British Music Industry, 'Kill Your Friends' had several ingredients that could have come together to make at least a reasonably interesting read.
By all accounts the British music industry in the 90s was a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah, a hive of culture, counter-culture and counter-counter-culture that created a perpetual atmosphere of exhilaration and madness that the general public came to both revere and fear. Publications like NME and Melody Maker were practically biblical, followed avidly by the unwashed masses as people watched the titanic rises and falls of that month's latest 'big thing'. It is a topic that has produced some of the most brilliant true modern day narratives, drugs sex and rock and roll literally the bread and butter of those who were involved and so an insight into that from someone who actually lived it, albeit briefly could have been fascinating.
So how is it that John Niven manages to make this such a monotonous, repetitive exhaustion of a story?
Let's put aside the idiotic sexism, pointless racism and the frankly bewildering prejudices that he manages to shoehorn in, because if I spoke about them this would go on for hours. Let's pretend that that's all included to show the 'lack of empathy' that our protagonist has and isn't in fact a lazy way of trying to be 'shocking' when in actual fact probably mirroring some of the opinions of the author himself. Let's instead focus on the narrative. Oh no wait, unfortunately he was a little too caught up in trying to sound 'cool' and seems to have forgotten to include any actual narrative.
From page one you can clearly see the attempts to link the protagonist 'Steven Stelfox' to the infinitely more interesting Patrick Bateman: mannerisms and conversational tropes copied and pasted straight out of Ellis' opening chapter provide very little actual fleshing out of the character. OK, he's a twat, we get that, but no-one is just a twat. Do we ever actually get any character development throughout the story? No. Instead of conversation about interesting music industry topics we simply get John Niven showing off how many names for cocaine he knows over and over and over and over and over and over again (Chang, Charlie, Chilango, Cha Cha Slide). Does Steven do anything of particular note besides the occasional murder? Not really, he has a penchant for putting things in peoples bottoms, he calls girls 'boilers' (just in case we didn't get that he doesn't have much respect for them beyond buggery) and he routinely cocks up at his job, resorting to petty bitching rather than getting on with things. That's about it, I think he goes to America at one stage, but the descriptions are all identical to everything else in the story so he might as well have been in Slough.
I suppose this was the point of the book, to be a 'sartorial look at the industry', however Niven seems to wildly miss that mark, rather getting caught up in what I can only assume are drug induced flashbacks of his own short experiences as an A&R man. Overly detailed descriptions of times spent in dingy bars and hotel rooms miss the intrigue of the personalities and situations that Steven found himself in. I don't want to hear about how you're hankering for another line of 'Chesh' or whatever stupid name you've called it this chapter (Café , Chalk, Cabaret, Chicken Korma), I want to hear about the singer of the band that you're talking to who's quiet in person but a nutter on stage, I want to hear about Waters, the guy who's in charge and having a great time whilst also seemingly the only person to have their shit reasonably together in this whole story. Where's the intrigue in another trip to the bathroom for another bump? (Circus, College, Care-Bear, Cerebrospinal Meningitis).
It would be manageable if the character of Steven himself was in the least bit likeable, but no, that would have required effort. One of the most fascinating aspects of American Psycho is that throughout the book you find yourself accidentally rooting for Bateman, you empathise with a man with no empathy and you have to catch yourself from not actually looking at the twisted actions as being in some way just. Throughout the entirety of Kill your Friends I couldn't help but hope that Steven would get into an unfortunate accident with a wood-chipper. That would at least have provided some kind of twist to the story, "where did the wood-chipper come from" would be a far more interesting question than "what the hell are you doing with that coat-hanger?"
Even the 'Killing your friends' part is a let down. Steven kills someone that he clearly has nothing but contempt for in the first third of the book. There isn't any surprise in this killing, he does it, the reader goes 'huh' and then you move on. It's almost as if Niven was writing a book without the murders but couldn't figure out a way to progress the story with just different names for cocaine (Chortle, Carly B, Charisma, Cockles and muscles alive alive oh). Then for the entire rest of the book we have to sit through aimless drivel wondering if he's going to kill again, and then he does and no-one is surprised. Oh it's the person that has been blackmailing you as of last chapter? There's a shocker. No tie ins, no interesting sub plot, just "you trifled with the Stelfox now you're gonna die". Also big up to the police detective whose existence in this story is purely down to the fact that Niven wrote himself into a corner where Steven needed to hide a body at the end of the book. He sure as hell doesn't seem to do any actual detective work. There was a brief moment where it looked like he could have been an interesting antagonist, the sleuth detective pinning down the deranged killer, the Javier to Stelfox's Jean-Valjean. But no, he's just a bit wet and besides, writing like that would have detracted from listing names for cocaine (Cash, Coral, Cathy Newman, Colossal waste of time).
Don't get me wrong, there is an audience for this kind of book. Of course there is, otherwise it wouldn't have sold so well. So if you are between the age of 16 and 21, tried American Psycho but struggled cos there's big words, you have no friends and believe that this is because you're some sort of emotionless savant rather than just because you are inherently unlikable, then maybe this is the book for you. For everyone else though, just read American Psycho, there's more substance in the first five pages of that than in Niven's attempt at sucking off his own failed career.