Punk Rockwell, by Michael Rothenberg

Review is copyright and written by Mary Sands.

Punk Rockwell, by Michael Rothenberg, is the sort of book I'd like to see more of on the market these days. It's the kind of book that I took to the beach with me, two days in a row. And then had to finish it before going to bed the second night.

Punk Rockwell has enough of the "common stuff" you'd find in fiction these days--crime, sex, drugs--but those motifs don't saturate the book: ecology does. Rothenberg creates a habitat for his main characters and remembers humans as wildlife. There are surprising metaphors and turns of phrase that spark up this read: too many to mention, as they occur on every page at least once. The main characters include poet Jeffrey Dagovich and his wife Emily (who work for environmental causes). These characters are sentient beings, drawn to life, artsy, moody, going with the flow. Enter Punk Rockwell, son of a "turtle"--oh how the metaphysics and mother-earth play in this book--Punk also loves Emily and Angelina (wife of a Russian diplomat), and, and, and...

The prevalent motif (or perhaps main theme) of extinction in the book really got me going and made me want to read more. It made me think a lot about love/marriage and its potential "extinction." It made me think about the powers coming along to "save" such a species-specific trait. In this book, saving fruit bats or saving a couple's bond, familiarity, and need seem to have the same kind of overall importance: a habitat is built of an entire ecosystem; to enter in a "Punk" who threatens the marriage is like bringing in an Indonesian to eat an endangered fruit bat. Love is surely a necessary function with humans. Just as fruit bats that pollinate "nearly half the flowers in the world," love surely pollinates the majority of people in the world. Without it, where would we be? But love is an easy word, a vague word. A marriage is a monogamous unit, a faithful tie. Marital love gets difficult and concrete. Thank goodness Indonesians aren't eating love and marriage as their main course.

Anyway, back to the story... Punk's out to save a crate of caviar shipped from Russia to the U.S. president--but the caviar is really something else (you have to read the book, sorry). All the characters meet up here and there, all over the country; they sometimes get laid and they sometimes get knifed and they sometimes are out to save species--and themselves. The characters are real, and you can relate to them; because of how I read the book (mentions of Kerouac and eco-poet Gary Snyder near the beginning of the book set me in the mood), I saw the ecological anatomy of the human species, the backbone of sex, the spine of need, the heart and brain of love, the embodiment of pure survival.

The book is full of warm sensual and sexual connotations and denotations, which I also enjoyed. Rothenberg writes in such a way that these physical connections play out a biological need, and that the emotional whims behind them are hard to understand all the time--which is true as ever, bringing Jeffrey to some hard realizations about his marriage. To a great awareness, actually, of his love for Emily--which is recognized in full force at their approaching possibility of extinction. He realizes how much he needs her, despite her quirks--or because of them--and he finally realizes how much a part of his life she is. Sure, there are lots of fish in the sea, and he could love someone else, but probably not more than Emily--and so forth--so why terminate a thing that is part of you to have something else built up to be the same kind of part of you: it would damage a link to yourself, create a new one, get messy and unnecessary. A mutation of love? Rothenberg whips the various motifs all together very well. Then he lays it all out in a nonlinear method so that you read this book like a game of hopscotch. I highly recommend this book. It does what good fiction should do: it really makes you think.

About the Author

Michael Rothenberg was born and raised in Miami Beach, Florida. He currently lives in Pacifica, California where he grows orchids and is the editor of the e-zine Big Bridge. He is an environmentalist, an accomplished songwriter, and has been part of the vital Bay Area literary scene for two decades. His poems and short fiction have appeared widely in small press, Internet and literary magazines. He is most recently editor of Overtime, Selected Poems by Philip Whalen. He will also be editor of the Selected Poems by Joanne Kyger due out with Penguin 2002. Punk Rockwell is his first novel.

Ordering Information

Tropical Press
PO Box 161174
Miami, FL 33116-1174
14.95 plus 2.50 shipping and handling