Review and Reflections: Cathi Unsworth’s Season of the Witch: the Book of Goth, Nine Eight Books, 2023; or, Why I Never Became a Goth
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Mike Diboll To the memory of L, S, and Pete de Frietas, and to the resilience of Marc Almond – there but for Grace go I.Thanks for reading Toxic Grafity ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Prologue This extended essay is in three parts: a review; reflections on the music scene as I know it roughly 1978-’83 in relation to the book, and; my reflections on the music and subculture covered in the book after I left post-Punk subculture behind me, covering more of less the years 1983-’93. In parts two and three, reflections on my life are italicised, some are accurate reportage of events, some to a greater or lesser degree fictionalised but based on real experiences, a couple are pure fantasy, but relating to the music concerned. Some of my reflective material below is quite personal, but I hope it will be of interest as a kind of case study, and shed light on Cathi Unsworth’s excellent book. I had intended this to be much shorter, around 5,000 words, but as I wrote it grew and grew as the memories flooded back, and I learned so much from the author about the music I had only just missed being a part of.
Review and Reflections: Cathi Unsworth’s Season of the Witch: the Book of Goth, Nine Eight Books, 2023; or, Why I Never Became a Goth
Review and Reflections: Cathi Unsworth’s…
Review and Reflections: Cathi Unsworth’s Season of the Witch: the Book of Goth, Nine Eight Books, 2023; or, Why I Never Became a Goth
Mike Diboll To the memory of L, S, and Pete de Frietas, and to the resilience of Marc Almond – there but for Grace go I.Thanks for reading Toxic Grafity ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Prologue This extended essay is in three parts: a review; reflections on the music scene as I know it roughly 1978-’83 in relation to the book, and; my reflections on the music and subculture covered in the book after I left post-Punk subculture behind me, covering more of less the years 1983-’93. In parts two and three, reflections on my life are italicised, some are accurate reportage of events, some to a greater or lesser degree fictionalised but based on real experiences, a couple are pure fantasy, but relating to the music concerned. Some of my reflective material below is quite personal, but I hope it will be of interest as a kind of case study, and shed light on Cathi Unsworth’s excellent book. I had intended this to be much shorter, around 5,000 words, but as I wrote it grew and grew as the memories flooded back, and I learned so much from the author about the music I had only just missed being a part of.