The title may suggest a gushing paean to Mozzer, but Meat Is Murder is in fact alt. country hero Joe Pernice’s first stab at fiction. A damn fine one it is too with suicides, gymnasium humiliations, incendiary teenage infatuations and Clash references peppering the High Fidelity meets The Breakfast Club plot.
Set in a Catholic high school near Boston circa 1985, one suspects that the get in, do the damage and get out 102-page tome is at least partly autobiographical.
Can’t say I’m a fan of his music, but as a prose writer Pernice has it nailed.