There is a self conscious 'movement' emerging in the blogosphere who call themselves 'The Offbeat Generation'. Heralded by founder and chief editor of 3:AM magazine, Andrew Gallix, describes the Offbeats as "nonconcomformers who ( atleast in their work) feel alienated from mainstream publishing, which is increasingly dominated by marketing people, and often draw inspiration from non-literary material. In some ways, it's a continuation of the post-punk Blank Generation writers. Some Offbeats also have an offbeat, experimental style, but that's certainly not the case of all of us. It's not a movement with a manifesto. All of the Offbeats write in very different styles. What brought us together was our hostility to mainstream publishing."
When asked for their criteria for inclusion or exclusion, Gallix, answers "It's not a club, so in theory anybody can be an Offbeat writer. There is no criteria as such. There are webzines out there made by people we don't know who claim to be Offbeat publications, which is great because it means that the movement is growing. In fact, some people who were very dismissive, and even hostile, at first, are now blowing the trumpets for the Offbeats. The original Offbeats coalesced around 3:AM Magazine, and in particular the events we organised in London. We started 3:AM in 2000. By 2003, we started organising/readings/concerts: The future Offbeats started coming along, but didn't know one another. By 2006 I became aware of the fact that all of these people needed to be brought together. The first thing we needed was a name so I started speaking of the 'Offbeat generation'."
One of the major authors in the Offbeat scene, ( and possibly the most revered in the counter-culture venue of underground lit) is Tony O'Neill. His debut novel, 'Digging the Vein' is certainly worth a read, and I found it to be an accurate portrait on heroin addiction, with it's superficial relationships and endless searches for drugs; I was left with the impression that he was purposefully making a statement that 'addicts tend to befriend other addicts', and the constant activity of the protagonist is reflective of someone desperately attempting to avoid his inner demons via the numbing effect of drug abuse.
Mathew Coleman is another major player in the Offbeat Generation of writers who predominately writes erotic fiction. Yet, I think that his stories are by far more interesting when not alluding to sex, as I feel many of his erotic stories are devoid of emotion, misogynist and downright vulgar ( although he may take this to be something of a compliment.) Offbeat Writer, and chief editor of Scarecrow magazine, Lee Rourke, describes Coleman's 'Provocative Pages' as " A no-holds-barred, dice and splatter, post-modern regurgitation of pulp, trash, porn and all that is down-right dirty."
So, in a sense, if this is your type of thing, well..
However, I do hope that he will outgrow the genre of erotic literature, for it is my belief that he does have more depth than he allows to be revealed in his alter ego, 'The Enfant Terrible'. In his 'Rants, to Self':
"My greatest challenge in life is to try and let go, to pull off the many masks that I wear and to try and be who I am, to not be afraid anymore. This is perhaps one of the hardest things to conquer the self. "
Gallix, of course, is quite the brilliant "Brit Lit of the post-punk generation", and I think his style is rightly described by the legendary underground writer, artist and activist, Stewart Home: "Andrew Gallix is the Breton of the post-punk generation, the Rimbaud of the Net, Beckett to my Joyce, and Trocchi to my Beckett. Leaving myself aside (although I don't really see why I should), there aren't many writers I'd rate higher than Gallix"
And, who wouldn't? This from Gallix's 'Forty Tiddly Winks'
"Others can just doze off as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Not Tim, though. He needed knocking out flat by dint of drinking himself into a stupor. Otherwise, he was condemned to toss and turn till dawn at the thought of Time's winged chariot hurrying near: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang you're dead.
Instinctively, Tim would tune into the hypnotic ticking of his wristwatch on the bedside table. Like a clock in a crocodile, it grew closer by the minute with the implacable inevitability of tragedy until the din became truly deafening. Now, he just knocks back another stiff one and waits for the effect to kick in. The clockodial starts melting, Dali-stylee. The ticking gradually fades into a tiny, tinny background backbeat. Soon it is drowned out by Pomme's sonorous snoring. Forty tiddly winks."
Joseph Ridgwell, the only true 'East Ender' of the bunch, writes engaging stories that are strikingly real and down to earth; and his stories manage to be edgy without straining to be so. Joseph Ridgwell's stories take you down the dark alleys of the underground, as only someone who has quite literally, 'lived first and wrote later'. You may find his stories in his blog/website:
Ben Myers is my personal favourite of the Offbeats, and his debut novel "The Book of Fuck' is a pleasure to read, as it is uproariously funny and story driven, and remarkably sensitive for such a hard core sounding title:
"I locked up and left the flat dressed for war: knee length overcoat, beanie hat, scarf wrapped around my head PLO-style, hooded top and a couple of jumpers. I had decided that I wasn't going to allow a British winter to get me this year, I was going to hoist up the portcullis, pull up the drawbridge and close myself off to the world and its cruel elements. No chinks in the armour, it's all about layers"
He is a pugilist poet, novelist, biographer, and frequent journalist for The Guardian'. You may view his writings in his blogspot, 'Ben Myers, Man of Letters' http://www.benmyersmanofletters.blogspot.com/
Yet, overall, I've noticed that much of the subject matter of the Offbeats often delves into the unpleasant experiences of the lower middle to lower classes; engaging their characters in 'street smart' behaviours in their struggles to survive. The stories are mostly commonplace and unheroic, where the fate of the characters are the result of the controlling force of society. Drugs, poverty, alcoholism, alienation, anger and nonconformity are recurrent themes. So much so, that I have to wonder if it is not they who reject the mainstream, and alienate themselves from society through their writing. I may only compare them to the Naturalist/Realist movements, and I wonder why these periods are being repeated in Modern Literature.
To revert back to the interview, I've asked Andrew Gallix if he feels this might be an accurate analogy:
AG: " Well, I would partially disagree. Some Offbeats like Tony O'Neill are writing in a naturalist tradition, but others like HP Tinker, Tom McCarthy, Steven Hall, or dare I say me, certainly aren't. The Offbeat scene covers many genres and styles."
JC: Why do you feel that the marketing departments are dictating what is being published?
AG: "Publishing houses used to support authors simply because they were good or interesting; that's almost unheard of these days. More and More books are being published, but alot of them aren't worth publishing (one thinks of Ecclesiastes: "Of the making of books there is no end"!). More and More books are being published, but there's less and less choice in book stores.
JC: If there is a large market out there of writers who want to read ( and buy) more literary type books, then why are the marketing departments not seeing this as reflected in sales?
AG: "I think they are, when they're ready to take a risk. Tom McCarthy's extraordinary success is a good illustration of this. The good writers are not being drowned out by the dross; there's just more choice out there. If a band creates its own label and releases a record, everybody applauds their sense of enterprise; when a writer does the same, some people cry out "vanity publishing"! However, writing is not all about marketing and money. Or atleast it shouldn't be."
I do sense that there is some contradiction here. In one answer Gallix proclaims that there are less and less choices out there due to the increase in books being published that are basically just crap; and in another he says that good writers are not being driven out by the dross! With this in mind, I have to wonder why the Offbeats are " feeling alienated from mainstream publishing, which is increasingly dominated by marketing people, and often draw inspiration from non-literary material." Are good writers being published, but no one is buying? Or are the Offbeats just not adhering to golden rule of thumb of book publishing: you have to write stories that people want to read, not just stories that you want to write.
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