We Will Rid the World of You by Scott Burr-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date May 29, 2020

Dex Foster has a pregnant girlfriend, a radio show facing cancellation, and a heart full of Gen-X cynicism. Now he’s trying to reboot his broadcast career with a podcast featuring, for its debut episode, an interview with Logan Hazelette, Dex’s former bandmate and current rock demigod, lately absent from public life. But for Logan, on the run from life in L.A., this trip back home is a chance to do more than reconnect with old friends. And for Dex, still jealous of Logan’s success and now facing imminent parenthood, these few days will mean a confrontation between the past he’s still clinging to and the future he’s being rocketed towards.

WE WILL RID THE WORLD OF YOU is a startling and staggering odyssey through our celebrity-obsessed and terror-threatened present, through commercially-re-appropriated punk rock and the rural heroin epidemic, through one man’s struggle to choose love over fear.

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REVIEW:Told from first person perspective (Dex Foster), focusing on two timelines, WE WILL RID THE WORLD OF YOU by Scott Burr follows radio talk show host Dex Foster as his life slowly spirals out of control. When the radio station for which he works is sold, Dex and Dave’s number one rated talk show is on the chopping block. A possible podcast interview with one-time friend , former bandmate and reclusive rock star Logan Hazelette sends Dex and Logan’s manager into the underbelly of drug addiction where the reality of stardom hides the ugliness of fame. Having all but ignored his pregnant girlfriend Bethany back home, Dex must face the possibility that all is not well in both his personal and professional life-tragedy will strike and world events threaten to pull him under. From Cleveland to Paris, France, and back to L.A., Dex Foster will discover that fame is a perception; friendships are intermittent; and that life never made any promises for now or the future.

WE WILL RID THE WORLD OF YOU is a philosophical study of one man’s journey of discovery and loss, and a sociological essay about the people he meets along the way.

WE WILL RID THE WORLD OF YOU is an interesting, thought provoking, and intriguing but slow building story that, for the first half of the book, does more telling than showing. Reading like a narrative of one man’s life, WE WILL RID THE WORLD OF YOU jumps from the present to the past, returning to the present but doesn’t pick up momentum until Dex Foster begin his search for musician Logan Hazelette. We are witness to Dex’s downward spiral following ten years of on-air success; his struggling relationship with his girlfriend; his volatile friendship with, and jealousy both past and present of Logan Hazelette, and his affiliation with a stranger named Jonathan Upasaka, a man who will show Dex Foster the meaning of life.

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy