I’m normally not one to fall for literary hype, but I succumbed, back in February, and picked up Young Kim’s “A Year on Earth with Mr. Hell,” the first-time author’s allegedly scandalous and graphically revealing tell-all about her brief affair with reluctant punk pioneer/author Richard Hell. Hell himself has gone on record, since the book’s initial release in 2020, dismissing the endeavor as “revenge porn,” and complained that Ms. Kim published the work with neither his knowledge nor consent. Ironically, I certainly never would have heard about the book had Hell not been so vocal about it. But, with my curiosity piqued, I went out to try to track down a copy for myself, but they were hard to put your hand to. I ended up ordering one from McNally-Jackson in SoHo, and about a week later, I picked it up.
In its defense, I’ll say this — the book itself is a lovely artifact to hold in your hand, lavishly published by a little, independent house called Fashionbeast Editions (I apparently own a second edition). This all said, I’m ashamed to confess that, a month later, I am still sluggishly paging through it, which is embarrassing in that the book is barely the length of a novella. The trouble is that I am routinely finding myself driven away from it.
As a quick bit of backstory, “A Year on Earth…” starts off documenting Young Kim’s initial flirtation with fabled poet-turned-proto-punk rocker Richard Hell, who she’d approached for the purposes of recruiting him to present an award dedicated to the legacy of her late lover, Malcolm McLaren. As has been well documented, McLaren famously used Richard Hell as the sartorial/tonsorial template, in the late `70s, he’d later project onto the fledgling Sex Pistols, an arguably thorny bit of pop-culture history that continues to act as an oft-employed cannonball in rock-geek battles about the true provenance of all things Punk. Regardless, in the wake of McLaren’s death, Kim, the lone executrix of McClaren’s estate, rightly deduced what a pivotal inspiration Hell had been to her former partner and reached out. In short order, sparks begin to fly, and the story takes off from there.
There, however, is where my problems with it start. I should preface the rest of this post with the probably obvious concession that I’ve never written a book, much less a detailed memoir. I’ve been approached to do so, a few times, but I frankly just don’t know that I have a book in me, so to speak. As such, who am I to take Ms. Kim to task for successfully vaulting her book into the public consciousness? It may not be a best-seller, yet, but it’s garnered a fair share of critical acclaim, including a prestigious write-up in The New York Times. That’s nothing to sneeze at, and I completely respect the achievement. By the same token, as a reader (and as a longtime Richard Hell fan), I’m perfectly entitled to have my own opinions about Kim’s writing, and not all of them are that reverential.
For a start, while it’s firmly established from the jump that the author is an avowed acolyte of all things fashion, Kim’s indefatigable attention to recounting the minutia of her wardrobe and her slavish devotion to luxury items during any given chapter is of absolutely zero interest to me. The painstaking citations that she sleeps on a bed adorned with “shaggy Tibetan goat-hair cushions,” wears incorrectly sized Yves Saint Laurent heels simply because they were designed by Hedi Slimane (“What an exquisite and glamorous collection!”) and/or that she chooses to wear (and bother describing) a “thick angora sweater dress color blocked in pale cerulean blue an intense cobalt blue” for one tryst with Hell just end up cluttering the page and unwittingly revealing her to be something of a brazen materialist. Now, granted, given her predilections, her vocation, and her background, one should assume that the intended readership of this book isn’t solely crotchety rock dads like me, and there may indeed be a particularly fabulous demographic that cannot get enough of reading about Kim’s bespoke outfits and expensive taste. But, as far as I'm concerned, it just gets in the way of the narrative.
Secondly, and, to be fair, this one is a way more niche concern, Kim takes a few misdirected potshots at my beloved local, the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill. Granted, I’m hugely biased as I literally live in the same building as this age-old neighborhood standby and have been dining and drinking there for years, even well before I moved into the apartment in question in 2002. I was very pleasantly surprised to read that the Knick is a big favorite of Hell’s as well (although in all my years of going there, I’ve yet to spot him in one of the booths), and he chooses it for their first date. Unfortunately, during that first meal together there, Kim orders a steak that is not prepared to her liking (while Hell’s comes as he asked for it), which immediately prompts her to brand the place as “sexist.” She doubles-down on this allegation when, at another point, they clear her wine glass without asking if she wants another. Listen, Ms. Kim, I’ve ordered an ill-advisable number of steaks from the Knick, over the years, and you really shouldn’t be taking it so damn personally that they may have not completely prepped the food to your exacting standards. Suffice to say, you’re not that special — it happens to all of us. Is it annoying? Sure, but it’s not sexist.
Hell and Kim end up returning to the Knick a few times, during the course of proceedings, and she continues to dump on the place, at points, for being -- God forbid -- not her style, too crowded and/or “too well lit” (which is bizarre, `cos it’s rarely that), and I’m sorry — I’m not having that. Besmirch the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill at your peril. Don’t like it? Then fuck right off to your precious Boom Boom Room at the noxious Standard Hotel and please never come back. Sorry, but she truly crossed a line with me on that one.
Lastly, for a book so many — including hallowed wordsmiths like Bret Easton Ellis and Greil Marcus — have rapturously hailed as grippingly salacious in the boudoir department, I have to say … it’s just, well, kinda boring, in that capacity. Liberal usage of exhausted “dirty” words like “cock” and “pussy” don’t exactly push the envelope of expression any more than what you might otherwise find typed dispiritedly in the distressed pages of Penthouse Forum. I also sincerely doubt Hell was especially chuffed to read some of his particular bedroom kinks exposed for the world to scrutinize, but I guess that is the crux of the project, which Kim makes no apologies for. It might have been nice if she’d warned him first, but — as she has been quick to point out — many men have written far worse without ever seeking approval or offering apology.
In any case, I still have a fair chunk of it yet to slog through, but one more crack about the Knick and it’s going to be a swift and unrepentant defenestration.
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