Loudmouth
A Novel
In 1970s New York City, Thomas Ransom dreams that rock 'n' roll will be his ticket out of the life his conservative family planned for him, and he takes it to the extreme: burning bridges and houses on the way to discovering his true destiny.
Thomas Ransom, born to a severely dysfunctional southern family transplanted to New York City, is left to his own devices by neglectful parents, and spends his childhood shadowing his criminally-inclined half-brother and roaming the city with hard-drinking teenage pals. He eventually finds an outlet as the flamboyant singer of a downtown rock band, and later as the young editor of the Detroit-based magazine that invented punk, only to return to New York, at the height of the 1970s bacchanal, and crash. But it isn't music that saves him. It's a soft-spoken painter, who turns out to be the most outrageous character of all. With echoes of Almost Famous and Just Kids, Loudmouth tracks an impassioned musician and writer out among the punks, hippies, and wild geniuses of rock when music was the center of the world.
'Read this book immediately if you like truth, drugs, generation gaps, guitars, and lifelong quests for freedom and kicks.' – Craig Finn, The Hold Steady.
At 22, Robert Duncan was managing editor of the legendary Creem magazine, working in Detroit alongside his friend Lester Bangs. He has contributed to Rolling Stone, Circus, Life, and dozens of other popular publications. He was lead singer, songwriter, and producer for several rock bands, including 3DayBig&Tall. He is author of The Noise: Notes from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Era; Kiss, a tongue-in-cheek biography; and Only the Good Die Young, a collection of profiles of dead rock stars. He was story consultant and interview subject for the documentary, Creem: America’s Only Rock & Roll Magazine, which premiered at SXSW in 2019. He is anthologized in Springsteen on Springsteen and Patti Smith gave him a shout-out in her memoir, Year of the Monkey. His poetry has been published in several issues of Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art (Three Rooms Press). He is founder of the advertising and design firm Duncan Channon and its Tip Records subsidiary. He was raised in a Southern family displaced to New York City and now lives with his wife, the artist and rock photographer Roni Hoffman, near San Francisco. LOUDMOUTH is his first novel.
