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Title: Recycled flavor.
Review: The ridiculous name-dropping and mimicry of this novella drew my ire on every page. Leave out the dozens of floundering allusions (literary, cinematic, and musical) and there is practically nothing approaching original, unless you consider the story itself -- a blatantly Burroughs-esque nightmare of barbituares, coprophilia, and trannies -- original. Marshall even conjures up sad doppelgangers of Nico and Patti Smith, and makes a jesting attempt to channel Shakespeare. It's talentless imitation and no good.Spelling and grammatical errors also abound, and the book's thankfully scant 114 pages are double-spaced, seemingly in an effort to look sizable and worthy for publishing. Ultimately, 'Psychoboys' smacks of an amateur writer who somehow doesn't realize it's all been done more artfully before: by de Sade, Ballard, and Burroughs, for starters.
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