Rock The Page

Seppuku. Post-it notes. The Devil incarnate. Cartoon voiceovers. Chaos. Wintry ducks. These are only a few key elements that make up the first novel by Rob Benvie, better known as Tiger Benvie or East Coast indie rock purveyors Thrush Hermit and occasionally the Dears. And while Benvie still makes time for the rock with his latest venture, Camoflauge Nights (with fellow Hermit Ian McGettigan), he has also become a talented writer. His first novel, Safety of War (Coach House Books) follows David, a lonely, eye-patched copywriter looking for some meaning to his life, but ends up on a farm called Chaos where he releases a demon into the world and has to hunt the damn thing down. Sound complicated? Well it is. Benvie busies his character with depressing family flashbacks, war-mongering premonitions, an inappropriate infatuation with a young cousin and a relentless hard-on for General Patton. Only in reading can you make sense of the wonderfully detailed and ingenious madness this rocker has put to paper. Even then, you’ll still be a little mystified. Cam Lindsay