I finished The Pepsi-Cola Addict by June Alison Gibbons this week. It was weird. Like there was something odd or skewiff in every line. Doubly so in the dialogue. And it was fascinating.
If you don't know the backstory, June Gibbons is one of The Silent Twins with Jennifer. Identical twins that moved in slow synchronised movements, they didn't speak to anyone apart from themselves in an impenetrable secret language. They were bullied. They retreated to their bedroom. They each created fantastical and elaborate stories, one of which they sent to a vanity press in the early 1980s - and that was The Pepsi-Cola Addict, the only surviving work.
They struggled to be apart and eventually struggled to be together, and through a series of misadventures, they turned to petty crimes, which escalated to burning down a business in their home of Haverford West. Poorly advised at the trial, instead of a short prison sentence they were sent to Broadmoor for an indefinite period. 11 years later, while being transferred to a minimum security prison in Wales, on the drive back Jennifer leaned on June and died. The story goes that there was a pact that if one died the other would start speaking.
Now, you don't get much more of an outsider art backstory than that. do you? If you want to learn more about her story there's a documentary going out at the moment by BBC Radio Wales called 'June: Voice of a Silent Twin' that features lots of interviews with June Gibbons.
Also, if you see a copy of The Paper / Y Papur about the place, then it features the first-ever review of The Pepsi-Cola Addict, back when there were thought to be less than 10 copies in existence (and none in Wales, much to the chagrin of the reviewer). It has since been republished, with June's blessing, by Strange Attractor Press. It was through this review that I first heard of the Gibbons' story.
Anyway, what's the book about? It's about a fourteen-year-old boy, Preston Wildey-King, his addiction to Pepsi and how it warps his relationships with his girlfriend Peggy, his family and friends, and his schoolwork. It's set in a synthesised hazy version of Malibu, a warped imagining of California gleaned from films and TV rather than real-life experience or research. This naivety and lack of real-life experience is mirrored in the interactions between characters - like, nobody talks the way they do in this book but its weirdness makes it really quite good.
OK, this is a music blog rather than a book blog, so let's shoe-horn in a song somewhere. I think Michael Jackson is mentioned at some point in the story, but I'm not going down that route. Rather, the warped, now nostalgic imagining of the beach life reminded me of chillwave, so let's slap in Feel It All Around by Washed Out.
That'll be it for book-based posts here for a while, I'm an incredibly slow reader, so watch out for the next one in 2025. Bye.
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