THE AMBOY DUKES by IRVING SHULMAN (1947)

 



Almost ten years before Elvis’ break into popular culture, writer Irving Shulman published The Amboy Dukes, a novel that scandalized post-war gringo society for its crude way of narrating the violent and sexual adventures of young delinquents. Brooklyn, deranging adults and the elderly, in defiance of their ways to tame youth under puritanical pressure lines.

Shulman’s novel marked a drastic change in the overprotective paradigm of the social approach to adolescents, unmasking a series of aberrant behaviors for the vast majority of American society, afraid of seeing their perfect suburbs, as sterile and false as a set of Hollywood of gold, altered by the irruption of young misfits and sadists. Although their stories were fiction, they were inspired by a reality that society preferred to ignore. For readers without risk instincts, trained in great literature or uncomplicated literature, happy endings and cooking recipes, Shulman’s novel was relegated to the so-called pulp literature , which at that time enjoyed a bad reputation, for its low quality, insinuating covers and very cheap paper, almost printed garbage, books for the fucked up and perverts; to see you with a copy of The Amboy Dukes could cost you a visit to the school principal’s office, belts and even visit with the psychologist.

Despite the exile of the prestigious bookstores and with a cost of only 25 cents, The Amboy Dukes would be the germ of a whole youth culture that years later would reap revolutionary phenomena such as beatniks or rock and roll itself. As a curious fact, the name of this novel would be the direct influence for the Detroit proto-metal band who would be baptized in the same way and with a young Ted Nugent in front.

Shulman’s novel reached cult status in record time and long before the term was forged as a historical adjective. The demand was such that the reprints were not enough, returning triumphantly to the bookstores, unmasking the American dream and building youth culture.

Courtesy Wenceslao Bruclaga and PM Press


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