Publisher's Synopsis
Meth, acid, vodka, psychosis, activism... Nicolas Cage... a tiger. Set in the 1990s and early 2000s, Children Chasing Tigers is a story about all that somehow. It's about death, madness and survival. To open this book is to give consent. But after that, there's no turning back. You are forced to join a group of young rocker foos from the slums of the San Fernando Valley as they struggle to escape violence, abuse and death, while they (and maybe you too) go insane along the way. So put on some 90s grindcore or crust, brace yourself and good luck.
"Facundo Rompehuevos's Children Chasing Tigers is the most nuanced exploration of the underground rock subculture in Southern California ever written, and in typical Rompehuevos' style it is unflinching and unforgiving in its fate and judgement-not just of the lost angels of this community, but of the dominant capitalist paradigms that egg on this authentically nihilistic state of stalled humanity, with a superficial, narcissistic and market driven mania fostering its growth. It's also the most in depth portrait of the Latino rock scene since The Spit Boy Rule. A fabulous and heartbreaking accomplishment."
- Paul Corman-Roberts, author Bone Moon Palace
"Children Chasing Tigers is a firecracker, popping every page with sparks of life from the San Fernando Valley of the 90s and 2000s, illuminating a world, so specific, that it can only result in pure fascination for the reader. As entertaining as it is striking and weighty, Facundo Rompehuevos is a master of the perfectly self-contained paragraph, never wasting an opportunity to illuminate characters, especially the rocker foos. Rompehuevos serves up a razor commentary with pristine clarity and delivers it through an authoritative gift for storytelling, never forgetting to make you laugh your ass off along the way."
-Aimee DeLong - author of Disco Ball Cherry & The Black House (a fictional rendering of the making of the documentary "Satanis")
"If Penelope Spheeris ever decides to do another installment of The Decline of Western Civilization, she ought to consider Facundo Rompehuevos's new novel for its subject. Children Chasing Tigers serves up an intimate investigation into the rocker foos of the San Fernando Valley in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Part cultural history part coming of age story, Rompehuevos paints a thrilling portrait of teen angst and excess that makes Suburbia look like an after-school special."
-Jim Ruland, author of Make It Stop
