Repetitive beat generation by Steve Redhead

Repetitive beat generation Reviews

• 
  Tara Brabazon

  Repetitive Beat Generation is a powerful book that probes why particular authors and particular works of fiction enter popular culture. Opening out the late 1990s - the Troubling Times of Tony Blair - Steve interviews a group of writers he terms the Repetitive Beat Generation. Best captured by Irvine Welsh and Trainspotting, the cluster of writers included Elaine Palmer, Nicholas Blincoe, Sarah Champion, Jeff Noon, Roddy Doyle, John King and Gordon Legge - to name a few. The interviews are evocative and rich, probing the nature of writing and the process of writing.
  
  What is powerful though and renders the book distinctive and important is that it traverses the arc of what makes popular fiction part of popular culture. Without the pretensions of 'art' or 'quality,' how do these men and women - particularly of working class origins - transform literature to understand their life and their time?
  
  One of my favourite quotations ever - from Irvine Welsh - comes from this book. "I was never a great reader of fiction, that's the problem that I had. People make the assumption that if you work in some medium a lot of your references come from that medium as well. I think the biggest practical influence I had was through working for the council."
  
  Yep.
  
  The resultant book is a deep, reflexive and at time troubling exploration of writing, fiction, politics and music.
• 
  Joel

  This collection of interviews is the perfect snapshot of a moment in time for a cohort of writers and the 90s zeitgeist in general. A great launchpad for discovering new material, it even includes bibliographic lists and suggested further reading.