Harmony Korine burst onto the scene with his screenplay for Kids - a film so gritty and unsettling in its depiction of teenage sex that it was almost banned in the UK. A Crackup at the Race Riots is similarly controversial. The novel is without plot, linear narrative, character development or scene setting. In other words, it is totally original. The book is a montage that takes literary convention and explodes it in a sequence of half-remembered scenes, suicide notes, dialogue fragments, movie ideas, rumours and jokes. Korine captures the fragmented moments of a life observed through the demented lens of media, tv and teen obsession. Korine's darkly bizarre imaginationhas created the ultimate post-postmodern novel - funny, offensive, depraved and sad.