Book Review: The Viaduct by David Wheldon

Book Review: 'The Viaduct' by David Wheldon

2 / 5 Stars

'The Viaduct' first was published in the UK in 1983. This Valancourt Books edition (136 pp.) was published in 2024 and features cover art by Roderick Brydon. 

 

'The Viaduct' was the first novel from author Wheldon (1950 - 2021), a physician. Goodreads lists 10 books authored by Wheldon; these other titles include 'The Course of Instruction' (1984); 'A Vocation' (1986), which also utilizes the theme of a railway as an experiential motiff;  and 'At the Quay' (1990). A posthumously published short story collection, 'The Guiltless Bystander,' was issued in 2022.

The novel is set in a Vaguely British landscape, where the eponymous viaduct was, in the past, constructed and used by the Eastern Provincial Railway Company. It's an imposing structure, taller than the tallest buildings in the cities and towns that it runs through, but it has fallen into disuse over the decades. Now, in its abandoned state, it is regarded with wariness by the people of the villages that lie under and around it. 

 

The lead character is a younger man named 'A.,' who has been freed from prison after serving a lengthy term for sedition. He decides to leave the city and set out along the viaduct, aiming to enjoy his newfound freedom, with no obligations to hold him to any place. But his traveling is given additional impetus when lawmen of the city pursue him on additional, much more serious, charges. A. evades them, but understands that he never can return to the city.  

 

The bulk of the narrative details A.'s encounters with various fellow 'vagrants' who move along the viaduct: some with urgency, others, with a sort of anomie-driven passivity. There is much dialogue between these fellow travelers and A., on topics tending to the existential. There are moments of alarm and pathos, but also camaraderie, as A. joins others in bedding down for the night inside the dilapidated buildings adjoining the now-abandoned railway tracks, in the undergrowth lining the tracks, or sometimes under the arches of the viaduct.

 

In the closing chapters of the novel summer gives way to fall, and fall then to winter, and what had at the outset seemed like a jaunt comes to take on a grimmer aspect. And it is in the winter that A. comes to a reckoning with his purpose in traveling the viaduct.

 

There are quite a few reviews of 'The Viaduct' available online (warning - ! some have spoilers). Some echo the approbatory blurbs from UK newspapers, and celebrated novelist Graham Greene himself, that are present on the book's cover. Others describe the novel as a disappointment. I'm in the latter camp. 

 

The author has skill in cultivating the meditative sensibility that one would expect in a novel cast as an 'allegory,' and as the very simple plot unfolded, I found myself engrossed in learning what A. would discover at his journey's end. But the patience asked of the reader is ill-served by a denouement that is predictable and unsatisfying. I won't say that the journey along the viaduct turns out to be a dream, but it sits in that territory.

 

'The Viaduct' is, in my opinion, more than a little over-rated. I'm content with assigning it a Two Star rating.

Boxing the Compass Haircut 100

Boxing the Compass

Haircut 100

June 19, 2026 

If you are a Baby Boomer and you recall the early days of MTV and the New Wave, then you're familiar with the UK band Haircut 100. In February, 1982, they released their debut LP, Pelican West, which soon charted in the UK. A single from that LP, 'Love Plus One,' was in heavy rotation on MTV that spring and summer. The band were among the most successful of the early 1980s, and seemed headed for an enduring presence on the Top 40 charts.

 

Efforts to record a followup LP foundered amid disputes with lead singer and songwriter Nick Heyward, who left the band in 1983, thereafter focused on a solo career. With Marc Fox on lead vocals, Paint and Paint was released in 1984 and while in my opinion a very good LP, it didn't achieve the success of Pelican West and the group soon disbanded, becoming a 'what if' motif for the New Wave and the UK's reggae-based sounds of the early 1980s.

 

But now, after some years in preparation and a number of delays, Haircut 100 have returned with a new LP, Boxing the Compass, released on June 19. Featuring Heyward on vocals and guitar, Les Nemes on bass, Blair Cunningham on drums, and Graham Jones on guitar, Boxing the Compass provides a perfect capturing of the spirit and sound of those early LPs. Its 10 tracks have the poppy, upbeat sound of Pelican West, and certainly will spark nostalgia among Boomers and MTV fans.

Boxing the Compass is available on CD, as an mp3 download, as a vinyl LP, and of course, on Spotify. If you want a sense of the LP's approach to music, the early release track, 'The Unloving Plum,' sets the scene as well as anything I can tell you. 

 

My fave track on Boxing the Compass is the final one, 'A Wonderful Life,' with its power pop sensibility and big horn sound. Nothing like it on the Spotify Top 40........

A recent, lengthy interview with the band is available here; interestingly, they hint at a followup LP. I am on board with that...... 

National Lampoon June 1973

National Lampoon

June 1973

June, 1973, and atop the singles charts is Paul McCartney and Wings, with 'My Love.'

The June issue of the National Lampoon has the theme of 'violence.' This is one of the year's better issues: some good stuff in its pages.

 

This is the golden era of album oriented rock, and the advertising reflects this. A couple of memorable album releases: Houses of the Holy, and the 'red' and 'blue' Beatles compilations (when, in 1978, I bought my very first LPs, these two were the ones). 

Todd Rundgren and Johnny Winter also get the full-page ad treatment.....

 

The Lampoon's stage show, Lemmings, enjoys critical praise, and releases an LP. Two years later, Lemmings would morph into Saturday Night Live.

 

Chris Rush (the stage name of Christopher John Mistretta, 1946 - 2018) is rather obscure now, but back in the early 1970s he was successful enough as a comedian to get his own LP released. You can find tracks from First Rush on YouTube. The bits are a bit dated (who under the age of 60 is familiar with the book 'The Naked Ape' ?), so I can't see modern audiences responding to the material........

Bob Guccione and Penthouse get themselves a full-page ad, too........!

The comic book satire, 'Kit and Kaboodle,' takes brilliant aim at the inherently brutal nature of 'funny animal' comics and cartoons. 

The Lampoon's 'house' cartoonist Charles Rodriguez provides 'Hemophunnies.' For some reason the magazine prints the blood in a shade of pink ?!

  

 

The Lampoon satirizes gun culture with Gun Lust, a magazine parody.

And.......let's not overlook the 'Foto Funnies' and the chance for boobies ! That's right, while back in '73 most newsstands, and five-and-dime stores, and pharmacies, had their 'adult' magazines wrapped in plastic or paper, the Lampoon usually was not, meaning enterprising adolescents could sneak a look inside, and be rewarded.......... 

Chris Miller's short story, 'Is it Still 'Playing' Post Office' features a novice mail deliverer who encounters some strange goings-on, in the affluent neighborhood of Sylvan Estates.

Let's close our trip back in time 53 years ago with some cartoons from Gahan Wilson and Vaughn Bode and Jeff Jones. As always, Jones's 'Idyll' is weird and obtuse. Hurry up and get that sex change operation already, Jeffy !

 

 

And so we say 'farewell' to that long-ago year 1973 AD, when 75 cents could buy you an issue of the National Lampoon......... 

America: Original Album Series

If you're a Baby Boomer, then you grew up with the music of the band 'America,' and their brand of mellow folk-rock. From 1972, with 'A Horse with No Name,' until 1982 and 'You Can Do Magic,' they were a staple of top 40 radio.

 

First released by Rhino Records in 2012, America: Original Album Series is a boxed set of CDs representing the band's first five albums: A Horse with No Name (1972), Homecoming (1972), Hat Trick (1973), Holiday (1974), and Hearts (1975). Available from your usual online retailers for under $20, this is a very affordable way to access all the band's bigger hits (only 'Today's the Day' (1976) and 'You Can Do Magic' do not appear here).

I'm not an Audio Snob, so I can't go into detail on the sound qualities of these CDs, but to my ears, they sound fine. America was a stripped-down group in the early years, and their folk sound can be thin and strained at times, so not having a 'high-fi' reproduction quality maybe doesn't matter all that much ?

As far as overlooked gems, well, I've discovered a few: 'California Revisited,' a Dan Peek from Homecoming, is a solid folk-rock tune that probably would've done well as a single. But truth be told, many tracks on these five albums are rather underwhelming; more like demos pressed into service, than fully-fleshed tunes.
 

In any event, Baby Boomers wanting an affordable package of seminal folk-rock rock songs will want a copy of this Original Album Series. And younger folks interested in 70s 'mellow' classic rock sounds (like they hear on the Sirius XM channel 'The Bridge') may want to take a look as well.

Book Review: The Texts of Festival by Mick Farren

Book Review: 'The Texts of Festival' by Mick Farren

5 / 5 Stars

'The Texts of Festival' first was published in 1973; this Avon Books paperback edition was issued in November, 1975, with the cover artist uncredited.

 

This was the first published novel for Farren (1943 - 2013) and reflects his background as a rock musician.

 

'Texts' is set in a near-future, post-apocalyptic UK (the eponymous, ramshackle city of Festival presumably once was London). Technology is at a 19th century level, save for some decaying amplifiers and record players whose public playing of the 'texts' (i.e., LPs) from such classic rock artists as the Doors and Bob Dylan serve a quasi-religious purpose in the cultural life of Festival.

 

In the novel's opening pages we are introduced to a number of characters, some of whom come to rather abrupt endings in terms of life expectancy. Farren uses these passages to emphasize that in this post-apocalyptic UK, life is nasty, brutal, and short. 

 

The main premise of 'Texts' is that a large force of raiders has been assembled through the machinations of one Iggy, a meth addict gifted with a touch of military genius. Iggy has persuaded Oltha, the leader of the Tribals, to join forces with Iggy's band of methheads, and attack Festival. Iggy is industrious in gathering firearms, including automatic rifles, no small task in the wasteland. With this firepower, and the liberal use of meth, Iggy is confident of success. For their part, Oltha and the Tribals are looking forward to a booty of liquor and women.

 

Joe Starkweather, an older man of considerable standing in Festival due to his role in leading the people to victory in past wars against wasteland factions, gets word of the raider army. He tries to gather the communities of Festival into a joint defense, but the Merchant Quarter refuses to donate their considerable stores of arms and ammunition to any communal effort. Further complicating Starkweather's efforts is the ruler of Festival, a dissipated sybarite named Valentine. In his drug-fueled egomania, Valentine believes he alone is best qualified to lead the defense of the city, leaving Starkweather with no choice but to plan for expediencies.

 

As the raider army sets off on its march to conquest, sides will be drawn, desperate plans put into motion, and the survival of the city dependent on a brutal, no-quarter combat between the raiders, and Joe Starkweather, Frankie Lee, Mac the Smith, Harry Krishna, Claudette, and the rest of Festival's defenders......

 

At 174 pages in length, 'Texts' delivers a stripped-down narrative, with little space for the authorial indulgences of most New Wave Era sci-fi. Indeed, the novel reads more as a Western than sci-fi. There are plentiful scenes of action and violence, with the latter content quite explicit by the standards of early 70s sci-fi. Farren is good at composing his fight sequences, and the final confrontation between the raiders and the city is suspenseful, while keeping the reader uncertain as to the outcome. 

 

In closing, 'The Texts of Festival' belongs to that sub-genre of post-apocalyptic, wasteland-centered sci-fi that began with 'Damnation Alley' (1969) and continued with Charles W. Runyon's 'Pig World' (1971), and Suzy McKee Charnas's 'Walk to the End of the World' (1974). With these novels it shares a downbeat, nihilistic tenor that paved the way for the gleefully transgressive attitudes of contemporary properties like the Fallout video games. 

 

I'm comfortable with giving 'Texts' a Five Star Rating, but readers are directed to the 'Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations' blog for a different opinion of the novel's worthiness.

Penthouse June 1976

Penthouse

June, 1976

June, 1976, and the top 40 chart reveals the impact of disco, with some classic boogie-oogie tunes present on the chart. Also appearing is 'Shannon,' by Sha Na Na band member Henry Gross. A song about Beach Boys member Carl Wilson's dog, Gross's falsetto, in an era before Auto-tune, is amazing.

The latest issue of Penthouse magazine is on the stands, and it contains an advertisement for 'Calcutta Cloth,' a brand of leisure suits designed for summer weather. If nowadays they made these, and in a neutral color (as opposed to peach and canary yellow), I might buy them. Whether I would wear them in public, is uncertain....
 

There are some good articles in this issue. Anthony Pearson's 'A Conspiracy of Silence' examines the destruction of the U.S. spy ship Liberty at the hands of the Israelis in June, 1967. Lyndon Baines Johnson, the President at that time, suppressed reporting about the attack in order to avoid turning American opinion against Israel in the Seven Day War.

During the Seventies and Eighties East Asian religious organizations set up shop, with some success, in the USA. One of these was the 'Unification Church,' founded by the North Korean-born reverend Sung Myung Moon. By the mid-70s the antics of the so-called 'Moonies' were gathering attention, such as this article by Michael Pousner, which portrays the cult in something of a negative light.

The Interview is with Vincent Bugliosi (1934 - 2015) who gained fame for prosecuting the Manson Family for the 1969 Tate - LaBianca murders. Bugliosi's greatest talent was in self-promotion........

The fiction piece in this June issue is a neat little tale, set in the USA of 1997, titled 'The Technician.' Author Michael Rogers posits a near-future America where Christian fundamentalists are the major political power. The first-person narrator is a drug dealer who makes a mistake..........a mistake with hazardous consequences. This is the kind of story that would be a little too edgy for Omni (which would debut two years later).

A portfolio is devoted to Chelsea Eriksen, a young lady with 'long blonde hair' and 'ice blue eyes,' and a 'free and easy California spirit.' The photos capture the California sensibility of the 1970s - an era now become myth - and the accompanying Earth Tone aesthetic. Quite a package, if you ask me........

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so we say farewell to June of '76, fifty years ago, when life was a little less complicated and colored in beige, brown, and gold.