Psychomachia: Greek for the war of the soul. 

A fitting title. True to its name. 

As someone born in 1997, my understanding of the 90s is borrowed and second-hand, yet Kirsty Allison’s, Psychomachia feels authentic and nostalgic.

Our protagonist, Scarlet Flagg, trips through the 90’s fashion and music underworld in a relentless saga of sex, drugs, conflict, abuse, and excess. The story is shocking, glamorous, sticky, hazy and darkly funny.

I wasn’t surprised to learn that Allison has lived within the world she writes about. It makes sense. The characters and events are so viscerally wild and alive that they could only come from experience. At times, the levels of excess border on the far-fetched (I don’t know how anyone could survive some of those binges, but I suppose in many ways they don’t, and maybe that’s the point). It feels like a glimpse behind the curtain, you know you shouldn’t stare, but you can’t look away.

Throughout, footnotes referencing rock and roll tragedies and 27 Club initiations ground the story in reality. 

‘You look like you’ll be more zapped than Mia Zapata. You’re doing a good advert for staying clean.’ 

The subsequent footnote coldly details Zapata’s 1993 murder. 

‘Mia Zapata was lead singer of Seattle grunge band, The Gits. She was murdered walking home late at night on July 7th, 1993 by a fisherman with a history of brutality towards women. Joan Jett and Kathleen Hanna wrote a song in her memory called Go Home. She was 27.’

These footnotes, grounded in real history, introduce a second rock and roll narrative of the twentieth century, one marked by loss, decadence, and melancholy. They also serve as a sobering reminder that this world isn’t what it seems. And Psychomachia shines a light on that dark truth.

It’s also worth mentioning that this book itself is beautiful, bordering on excess. Published by Wrecking Ball press artwork is glorious. Pictures are by Siena Barnes, who does a lot of work with Hysteric Glamour which makes total 90s sense.

Overall, I relished this punk novel and have recommended it to lots of people!