Kill Your Friends by John Niven

(pb; 2008)

From the back cover:

"Meet Steven Stelfox.

"London 1997: New Labour is sweeping into power and Britpop is at its zenith. Twenty-seven-year-old A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, a world where 'no one knows anything' and where careers are made and broken by chance and the fickle tastes of the general public - 'Yeah, those animals'.

"Fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine Stelfox blithely criss-crosses the globe ('New York, Cologne, Texas, Miami, Cannes: you shout at waiters and sign credit card slips and all that really changes is the quality of the porn') searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification.

"But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cutthroat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career."


Review:

This satiric, horrific-as-a-rape-revenge-flick, American Psycho-esque take on the 1990s Britpop scene is a good, entertaining and quip-quotable novel. Kill is a more cohesive read that flows better than Bret Easton Ellis's failed-experiment American Psycho, even if it does run a bit long around the middle of the story -- worth reading, this. possibly worth owning (if you do not mind the extended middle section).

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The resulting film was released stateside on April 1, 2016. Owen Harris directed the film.

Nicholas Hoult played Steven Stelfox. James Corden played Roger Waters. Georgia King played Rebecca. Craig Roberts played Darren. Jim Piddick played Derek Sommers. Bronson Webb played Rob Hasting. Rosanna Hoult, real-life sister of Nicholas Hoult, played Katy.