In the United States, 1999 was a year riddled with huge headlines. Bill Clinton’s impeachment trials began. Yugoslav security forces killed Albanians in Racak, Kosovo. Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You” released, becoming the artist’s third UK #1 hit; and music began its irrevocable relationship with the internet. On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, in the span of 49 minutes, changed the course of American high schools forever when they committed the heinous school shooting which killed 15 and wounded 24. Subsequently, in a post-Columbine America, controversial hip-hop artist Eminem released The Slim Shady LP, and once again American families and politicians railed against video games and rock musicians. The controversy never stopped shock rocker Marilyn Manson from embarking on the Rock Is Dead Tour, though Manson continued his legacy as the head target for the American right’s moral corruption blame game. For some readers, 1999’s events are purely history. For the readers of Alex Kazemi’s debut novel New Millennium Boyz, these events are a backdrop for what was perhaps one of the most confusing and violent times to be an American teenager.
Kazemi’s New Millennium Boyz is a psychologically brutal read, one which requires a variety of trigger warnings. Nonetheless, the novel effectively dissects the corporate brainwashing and excessive materialism which created a superficial generation focused on pop culture and the internet. Brad Sela is an affluent teen whose Oprah-obsessed mother cannot tear herself away from the TV screen, and his father is the type of man who encourages Brad to never show his emotions. For Sela, life revolves around maintaining a perfect appearance: his parents expect Brad to hang out with only the richest and most popular kids at his high school and then attend a top-notch university. However, during senior year, Brad’s life takes an unexpected rollercoaster ride into the dark and depraved when he meets Lusif, also known as Lu, and Shane.
Lu is the grand wizard of moral corruption in Brad’s life, introducing Brad to the world of animal cruelty (the two kill a rat in very graphic, disturbing ways), drugs, and juvenile delinquency. Lu is obsessed with filming his and his friends’ savage behavior using portable hand cameras. Lu is a Satanist, a Marilyn Manson fan, a Klebold-Harris worshipper, a druggie, and an inherently evil person. Thus, in Lu’s character, Kazemi utilizes nearly all of the most brutal stereotypes of the gothic subculture the media blasted to the public after Columbine. The media asserted Klebold and Harris were members of the gothic subculture, a theory widely refuted to this day. However, for goths across America, the perpetuation of these stereotypes persists even in the present day. As one goth states in Harpers Bazaar, “Goth has always been a complicated subculture.” Just like in Kazemi’s novel, in the gothic subculture, music is inherent to one’s identity, and while some goths do listen to Marilyn Manson and identify as his fans, many goths disavow any association with “The Reverend” (as Lu refers to Manson).
The striking antithesis to Lu is Shane, Lu’s ultra depressed friend with a penchant for talking suicide and wearing Led Zeppelin shirts. Shane, compared to Lu, is rather normal. However, because the two have been friends since their early adolescence, Shane is easily lured into Lu’s antics. In terms of lifestyle and affluence, Shane’s existence parallels Brad’s, but both characters symbolize the disconnects between America’s affluent population and the impoverished ones. For Brad, life is all about maintaining an image, and as Brad’s friendship with both Lu and Shane deepens, he quickly resents the comfortable, plastic superficiality in which he and his family reside. For instance, initially Brad makes comments like “‘I think one of the most beautiful words in this language is ‘whatever.’ It captures how I feel about everything. I don’t have to care. I don’t have to be involved. I don’t have to participate. Caring is so embarrassing. It’s for total losers.’” As the novel progresses, Brad makes a distinctly opposite insight: “‘It’s like reality doesn’t even exist anymore, so any type of reflection that we see that claims to be reality is just another deception, another myth.’” Brad even goes so far as questioning the role of and influence of television in American society: “‘What is MTV trying to distract me from by making me believe that all I’m worthy to think about is Carmen Elektra’s rack?’” Brad’s self-awareness at this point is one of the novel’s highest socio-political moments, because of its subtle stab at Hollywood’s ability to determine an average individual’s self-worth.
With the same gut-wrenching grit as Frank Bill’s Back to the Dirt, New Millenium Boyz examines toxic masculinity during a time when the phrase had not yet been coined. Reading New Millenium Boyz is like joining Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower long after Charlie and his friends have discovered the internet, house parties, and the drug Ecstasy. It is not a novel for the faint or easily offended, but its surgical dissection of the lives of bored, privileged boys at a critical turning point in America’s cultural history is a necessity at another imperative watershed in American culture. For those who long for the 90s, its music and pop culture references are a nostalgic gateway to a time when MTV, Sam Goody, Hot Topic, and Columbia House reigned supreme.
New Millennium Boyz, by Alex Kazemi. Brentwood, Tennessee: Permuted Press, September 2023. 400 pages. $28.00, hardcover.
Nicole Yurcaba (Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. A poet and essayist, her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Seneca Review, New Eastern Europe, and Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University, and is the Humanities Coordinator at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College. She also serves as a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Southern Review of Books.
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