KING DEATH

by Nik Cohn ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 30, 1975

Nik Cohn used to be a rock reviewer, which may explain how he happened to write a story called Arfur, Teenage Pinball Queen (1971), but he's certainly not a novelist yet. Not if you judge by this fantasy, in which an English impresario happens to observe the work of Eddie, a particularly artistic hit man from Tupelo, whom he spirits off to the Hollywood mansion where TV dreams are created in order to make him King Death, superstar. Aided by network hypnosis and under government protection of ""the Bureau,"" King Death administers the ultimate sacrament to various Commies, creeps and perverts and acquires a fan club to rival the crusades. But Eddie realizes that the purity of his devotion to Death has been tinged by commercialism; and before he disappears again into the alleys and dark doorways of Tupelo, he polishes off the Englishman--who was as bored by the whole campaign by then as you might be if you should happen to mistake these cheap shots in a sideshow shooting gallery for an allegory about the American Dream.

Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1975

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1975

Categories: FICTION