Rock 'n' Roll Head Case: A Review

Rock 'n' Roll Head Case by Lee Widener

I'm going to make a confession at the beginning of this review – I totally underestimated this book. It wasn't in my top 5 of must reads. The idea seemed a little wild, a little disjointed – just not my style of bizarro. Dear reader, I was wrong. Dead wrong. I should know better by now, that all bizarro is my kind of bizarro.

Lee Widener's Rock 'n' Roll Head Case is a fun smashing together of a crazed road trip movie and deeply disturbing LSD flashbacks. It's something that Quentin Tarantino would dream up - if he were deranged, well more deranged than he currently is. Or more accurately, it's like a Hunter S. Thompson freak out.

Our hero Chaino Durante, is a two bit loser, who finds the severed head of Alice Cooper and ends up with it stuck on his right hand, forming a weapon. Chaino then uses this weapon to rob his place of work, runs from the cops, and endures hijinks and calamity while listening to the advise of Alice Cooper. On the surface, it's a simple road movie. We've all seen them. True Romance, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, you know the drill.

But, scratch a little closer, dear reader, and you'll find that that is only a veneer. There's a beating heart below. There's a philosophical standpoint that Lee wants you to acknowledge. It's wisdom boiled down from the 60's flower children and brought to you via a sequence of dreamlike vignettes.

Some readers may struggle with this, some may crave for a more coherent story, Lee's response: “Life doesn't make sense, better get used to that!”

So, strap yourselves in, my precious little ones, let old uncle Lee tell you a story. It's a story of failure and redemption, of violence and peace, of the truth behind the facade of this dimension we live in. It's the story of Alice Cooper's fucking head!

Rocknroll-Head-Case-Lee-Widener-ebook

Chris Meekings