"A slice of life with a personal rhythm and a universal beat..."

• ASIN: ‎ B0BP8G1S4S
• Publisher: ‎ Benjamin Grose (5 Dec. 2022)
• Language: ‎ English
• Print length: ‎ 243 pages
• Genre:  Satire & Literary Fiction

The BookViral Review:

It would be hard to imagine any novel about a nightclub not containing drugs, depravity, and all-around bad behaviour and The Reprobates certainly doesn’t disappoint in a rip ragingly provocative read that takes its readers from outrageous highs to rock bottom in the blink of an eye.

Artfully ambivalent it’s a disturbing read in the best sense with irresistibly bleak appeal as it wallows in the pain and, more daringly, in the pleasure of excess whilst what it lacks in plot, it makes up for with sharp dialogue and superb characterization.

The Reprobates wraps us up so profoundly in Munk’s self-destructive spiral, it’s as though we’re seeing it all for the first time and it’s to Grose’s credit that he manages the very neat trick of keeping us interested in a protagonist without a name who doesn’t merit our affection but earns it nonetheless.

On this level The Reprobates isn’t a story of success and fortune, but a slice of life with a personal rhythm and a universal beat. It’s a novel about lost time which unfolds chronologically, without as much as a flashback but is so energized by the subject that it overflows with inventiveness as we’re taken ever deeper into the murky world of Munk’s nightclub and the shenanigans that underpin it

Managed by Grose’s self-destructive and unnamed character, Grose has an acute eye for the details of his world and needless to say that sex and drugs come with the territory but The Reprobates is about so much more than drugs, sex and being permanently bladdered. It’s a celebration of tribal ritual and it’s most evident in Grose’s pitch-perfect ear for dialogue and the camaraderie that binds his characters into collective friendship.

A head trip down memory lane for many of its readers The Reprobates is quite simply a superb read and is unreservedly recommended.