M HKA Ensembles

Book, language: English, publisher: King Mob, London.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2024/859).

Literary synopsis

Pure Mania is set in an almost fictional anarcho-punk milieu around the squats and council estates of East London. This trashy adventure story takes the form of a blatantly falsified tour of eighties youth trends. It's a pastiche of the fiction published by New English Library during the 1970's. It's a fearless exploration of the sexual underground. It's the best read since NEL published Richard Allen's Skinhead twenty years ago.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

“The cover for the abridged audio CD version of my novel Pure Mania features a fabulous painting of me by Julia King. I prefer the CD cover to the book cover. I provided the publisher Polygon with dummy art work of how I thought the book should look, and their designer simply incorporated it into the cover without reworking what was only intended to be a rough. If you can find a copy of this novel take a close look at the small book reproduced in the middle of the cover and you'll see the art work is very ragged (in particular the peace symbol). My idea was to present the first edition of Pure Mania as if it was already a reprint of an established (anti)-'classic'. I think the concept was strong but the execution was sloppy, since the illustration is clearly a rough rather than a properly finished piece of art work. Publishing contracts rarely give writers final control over the design of their books, and in this instance I didn't get to see the art work until after the book was printed. I did however produce a load of my own promotional material including leaflets, stickers and badges that I was very happy with.”

-Stewart Home

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