In his New York Times bestselling book, "Teacher", Mark Edmundson gave us an entertaining chronicle of early youth as a high school student in the working class town of Medford, Massachussetts. "Teacher" is a coming-of-age story, where an Ivy-league educated, inspiring, erudite, and unique teacher, Frank Lears, helps a booze-drinking, rebellious, athletic, and somewhat lost young man see the power of knowledge, and the desire of a life spent in pursuit of learning. "The Kings of Rock and Roll" is also a coming-of-age story, but one that begins a bit further down the road of the the author's life, in that uncertain transition from college graduation into the "real world".
Edmundson, under the guidance of an eccentric and energetic friend, Pelops, whom he met at Bennington College in Vermont, heads, upon graduating, to New York City. Edmundson moved to New York City in the 1970's, a time when this big city of dreams, was "dirty and chaotic, but...in its strange way a paradise," and was ruled by the Kings of Rock and Roll and their defiant philosophies of rebellion and free love.
While in New York City, Edmundson tries his hand at many jobs: a security guard at large, unruly rock concerts, a taxi driver, a writer at "The Village Voice". Edmundson lives through these jobs with a wanderer's certainty of his journey, but also with the complete mystery as to his destination: "I was nearly certain that no straight job would ever yield the great good thing that on some level I secretly yearned for."
It is not in these hourly jobs that Edmundson ultimately found the meaning for which he longed. Art, music, and literature, combined with an open heart and mind, proved to be his beacon of light in a city of chaos. Artists, from Dostoyevsky to The Who, become Edmundson's secular heroes and saints. They guided him through the foggy abyss of early adulthood, and closer to some place of meaning.
Edmundson's search for meaning is not endeavored alone, but accompanied by characters worthy of the big screen- Duggan, Pelops, Duggan Senior, Murph. Together, the characters represent not only the desires of youth, but also the desires of us all. The desire to be something, to align our personal visions with reality, to fight the oppressive, deadening forces that stand in our way. Edmundson is aware of the chasm between dreams and reality in his own early adulthood, "there were many things I might want to be (writer, athlete, scholar). The gap between these things, and what I actually could claim to be was a source of ongoing pain."
Edmundson's bridge over this chasm comes as no mystery to those familiar with his work and views of the world. Above all, it is as a thinker and student of art that Edmundson finds meaning in the chaos, and aligns his experience with his ambitions. Even as a teacher, Edmundson never stops being a student.
"Perhaps there's another strong spiritual hunger that besets human beings...and that's the hunger to think about things. I'm talking about the need to look at life and ponder and try to make some sense where none is apparent." Through this book as with his others, Edmundson shares a honest and well-written self examination of his own life- a humble attempt to think, ponder, and ultimately insert meaning, where it may not be so ready to appear. In so doing, Edmundson shows us a way that we too can find secular guides in our own journeys, whether that be in friends, artists, film makers, or even kings and queens of rock and roll.
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