‘Peace, Love & Petrol Bombs’ Reviewed on PopMatters!
We are delighted to report that our upcoming novel (our second fiction book in recent years) has received a rave pre-publication review on PopMatters! Reviewer John L. Murphy says:
“This young Scots burger-flipper turned street protester tells what happened a decade ago in a fast-food kitchen, a small town, and at the barricades of anti-capitalist demonstrations in Prague, London, and Thessaloniki. Johnston enlivens this short, accomplished coming-of-age story with what appears to be a character based on himself, given Wayne Foster’s age and tenure at Benny’s Burgers. He travels throughout Europe as he rallies against ‘profit before people.'”
He continues:
“Amidst ‘the applause of shattering glass,’ many scenes evoke the feel of mass marches and sudden panic. As anarchists and socialists, Trotskyists and vegans, provocateurs and hippies, punks and perhaps a few workers drawing wages and not welfare convene, the sensation of change beckons them. But the apparently global triumph of capital represents an enemy before whom many capitulate. Benny’s Burgers, the franchise where Wayne enters the ranks of labor and where he learns from his louche co-worker nicknamed Spocky about progressive alternatives, stands for how the means of production stamps out—and on—today’s proletariat.
Johnston illustrates deftly the predicament of how we consume, how few options many workers have for meals and for shopping, how we work for the chain store and how we eat at the logo-laden franchises. He vividly dramatizes the automated regimen behind the grill, as relentless as any endured in Dickensian times. He shows the reality familiar to anyone, like myself, who worked in fast-food, or works in a setting dominated by managers with manuals, whether our labor is classified as manual or not.”
It’s a recommended read for everybody!:
“While the target audience for this novel, the second in a fiction series from venerable anarchist publisher AK Press, comprises those already converted to opposition, the appeal of this genial, engaging, yet serious search for meaning in a commodified global culture deserves wide acclaim.”
Sounds like a pretty good novel, right? Well, it is, we promise! Check out the full review on PopMatters, and then why not go ahead and preorder your copy of Peace, Love & Petrol Bombs at a 25% discount? The book will be available in mid-June.