Last Night at the Disco by Lisa Borders

ARC Received from NetGalley

Chances are, you've met the narrator of Last Night at the Disco. Maybe not during the actual 70s, but somewhere in the course of your life you've come into contact with the co-worker, the distant relative, or the child of a friend of your parents' who thought they were Hot Shit^TM. They were better than everybody else, they dropped celebrity names like a litterbug, and they demanded flowers without first purchasing the seeds. They dreamed big and likely manifested what luxury came to them, but at the end of the day you could tap their sternums and hear the Tin Man echo.

Lynda Boyle is that person. She's an A-lister in her mind when in reality she's not even a pop culture footnote. As Last Night at the Disco opens in the present day she's determined to set straight a Rolling Stone article about the recent induction of a rock legend to the Hall of Fame, delivered by her former eighth grade English student. If Lynda gets anything correct in her diatribe, it's that she did facilitate the meeting between 90s feminist rocker Aura Lockheart and Johnny Engel. Pretty much everything after that is history purposely skewed in Lynda's favor.

And it's freaking hilarious, right up to the last few pages of the book when Lynda's epislatory demand for credit concludes with a sitcom worthy womp-womp. But I won't spoil it.

As you read Last Night, you probably won't like Lynda, and that's okay. At the height of the 70s Me Generation she's conceited, vain, manipulative, and myopic. She aspires to fame as a poetess but rarely writes, using her time to schmooze people with actual talent during weekend jaunts to Studio 54. In a way she is like Gatsby's Nick if Nick were petulant and demanded credit for getting Jay and Daisy to hook up. She's convinced everybody loves her, that gay men will turn for her, when it's a sure bet that in the present day she's completely forgotten. 

Lynda isn't Hot Shit^TM, she's a Hot Mess^TM, an unrealiable narrator who would normally inspire me to close a book. I didn't, however, because the mess is such a fascinating train wreck I wanted to know if she got either comeuppance or a clue. That, I also won't spoil.

I did hesitate on reviewing the book here, because while there are music themes within the book, Last Night at the Disco doesn't focus wholly on music. Lynda is surrounded by amazing people - a gifted guitarist, student prodigies, shifty New York types and a cameo from 54's Steve Rubell - and she manages to make the entire story about her. That's the point, of course, but bless her, she isn't dull.

Rating: B

The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night by Anthony Haden-Guest

The Last Party (AMZ / BN / KOBO / ITUNES) was originally published in 1997. By coincidence, it came out around the same time filming of 54 with Michael Myers began, but one did not beget the other. I read the book when it first came out, and eighteen years later I'm transferring entries on my hand-written book log to Goodreads. Now, the log had four stars on this entry, but after some digging I found what I had written on Amazon all those years ago:

I admit it was the subject matter that prompted me to pick up this book, but I was disappointed. If anything, The Last Party is a much better chronicle of 54's history than that Michael Myers film, but it is essentially a slow-moving story.

That doesn't sound like a four-star review I'd write, so when I see Party has been re-released this year and slightly updated, I figure why not re-familiarize myself with the story and see if my opinion has changed. Journalist Haden-Guest (half-brother of Spinal Tap's Christopher) may be better known in some circles as a frequent guest, and while The Last Party chronicles the "Nightworld" as a whole - its early chapters a brief guide to popular discos of the time - it's clear in the 70s there was only place to party.

Party, though, isn't exclusive to Studio 54. Studio is perhaps the best known of the New York clubs that thrived in the brief disco era, but Haden-Guest touches on a myriad of imitators and (often unsuccessful) competitors. Party reads like a hybrid of micro-history and memoir, as Haden-Guest injects his personal experience in numerous vignettes within the book. It's a muddled story that plows through Studio 54, which enjoyed a life akin to a shooting star - an incredibly bright flame out and gradual fizzle into darkness. As you read a book like this, you might expect gossip to turn your hair white. You get snatches (heh) of it, but overall the book is a roll call of club promoters, developers, and people who are more New York/nightlife famous than world famous. There's a lot to muddle through and if you stick with Party you may ask yourself how a book about a place once considered the most exciting on the planet comes off so dull.

Yes, the slow-moving assessment remains. The book isn't much of a party for me, but if you're into peeling back glitter for the seamy underbelly of nightlife you'll get more tales of creative accounting than blind item coke snorting here.

Rating: C-

Kat Lively writes and reads, but doesn't snort.