Destroy ALL MONSTERS

PUBLISHED BY FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX

"At some point, I began to think of it as an ancient folk tale. It’s fine work, with a kind of scattered narrative set within a tight frame. Fast-moving throughout – fragile characters who suggest a bleak inner world made in their own collective image."  - Don DeLillo

“If you are new to Jeff Jackson’s fiction then welcome. Be excited. Be ready to fall in love. Be just a little bit afraid.” - Laura van den Berg

“A masterful work by someone I’d dare to call one of the greatest living authors.” - Kelby Losack, VOL. 1 BROOKLYN

An epidemic of violence is sweeping the country: musicians are being murdered onstage in the middle of their sets by members of their audience. Are these random copycat killings, or is something more sinister at work? Has music itself become corrupted in a culture where everything is available, everybody is a "creative," and attention spans have dwindled to nothing.

With its cast of ambitious bands, yearning fans, and enigmatic killers, Destroy All Monsters tells a haunted and romantic story of overdue endings and unlikely beginnings that will resonate with anybody who’s ever loved rock and roll. 

Like a classic vinyl single, Destroy All Monsters has two sides. At the heart of Side A, “My Dark Ages,” is Xenie, a young woman who is repulsed by the violence of the epidemic but who still finds herself drawn deeper into the mystery. Side B, "Kill City," follows an alternate history, featuring familiar characters in surprising roles, and burrows deeper into the methods and motivations of the murderers.

MORE Praise

“Delightful in its use of playful forms—including, appropriately, an A and B side—this taut, atmospheric rock and roll thriller touches a raw nerve with its subject matter. Add the artist’s struggle authentic power and the carrot of fame—Destroy All Monsters is rock enough for anyone.” - Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black

"Jeff Jackson is one of contemporary American fiction's most sterling and gifted new masters. With Destroy All Monsters, he has raised the high bar his work already set. It's a novel that impresses on many levels, with its beautifully hypnagogic, catastrophic story and writing that is a wonder to behold." - Dennis Cooper, author of The Marbled Swarm

“Punk rock in literary form.”  - Booklist 

"Destroy All Monsters has a distinct pulse--a kind of heart beat--that comes out of the rhythm of the prose, the inventiveness of the form, and the willingness of Jeff Jackson to engage the mysterious alchemy of violence, performance, and authenticity.  This accomplished, uncanny novel is simultaneously seductive and unsettling.” - Dana Spiotta, author of Eat the Document and Stone Arabia

“Jeff Jackson’s new novel surges with new-century anxiety and paranoia as it documents a fraught new state of vulnerability in which maybe everything is coming to an end. In other words, it’s a clear-eyed, stone cold vision of what’s to come.”  - Ben Marcus, author of The Flame Alphabet

“Jackson’s style is a grab bag of tricks from the journalist, the diarist, the theorist, the historian, and the artist of high letters. The beauty of his work lies in that he can range so wide, plunge so deep, and roar so high, and still be not merely readable but compulsively, achingly sensitive.” - The Millions

“A brilliantly dangerous book. Destroy All Monsters is like Rashomon meets the underground punk scene. This book is larger than itself and the most ambitious work Jackson has attempted, and goddamn if he doesn’t pull it off.”  - The Big Smoke 

READINGS

September 7, 2019: “Books and Bands” panel at Hopscotch Music Festival | Raleigh, NC 

October 11-13, 2019: James River Writers Conference  | Richmond, VA