Devotees of 1980s punk may be surprised to find that the primary enjoyment in Jeffrey Wengrofsky’s literary debut is not its exploration of New York’s punk scene of the time.
Instead, what’s most refreshing is the way in which Wengrofsky skilfully manoeuvres his autobiographical narrator through a world brimming with villains. They are oftentimes comically imaginative, other times a mindless mouthpiece for antisemitism. But despite the apparent hero-villain dynamic established early in the narrative, Wengrofsky refuses, heroically, to sink into tropes and clichés. He instead opts to simply highlight the extraordinary experiences of a young man attempting to orient himself in palpable yet dreamlike scenes of degeneracy, economic frailty, and political strife.
Events occur almost in spite of him, often drawing him in through violence. The Wolfboy appears in the depths of his human form’s passive immersion in collective acts of artistic rebellion. The same can be said for the experience of reading Wolfboy. The reader finds themself, unwillingly at times, disappearing into an often vividly violent, sometimes dreamy New York underworld in which human figures exist as much as figments of feverish imagination as they do concrete realities.
In “Escaping Eighth Grade,” for example, his heroic persona takes stage as a virtuous alter-ego facing off with his villainous classroom adversaries. Later, in a scene straight out of an ’80s horror flick, vampires draw blood in distressing scenes at a hospital. Eventually, his youthful coping strategies seamlessly transition to an all-too-relatable infatuation with a glorified culture of dissent. The Wolfboy becomes surrounded by very real violence, which is artfully and tastefully depicted by a keen observer in Wengrofsky.
He “was not cut out for life on the street and [he] knew it.” But he surrounds himself with actors of all sorts. And he seems happy to let them do the acting. Burning elegies; casually receiving oral sex on the Williamsburg Bridge; chanting anarchist slogans… the narrator does none of these things. He passes the bottle (barring one instance of throwing it, the consequences of which are severe), literally and figuratively, in support and admiration.
It thus comes as no surprise that Wengrofsky knows what he’s writing about, and how to write about it. the reader becomes not only deeply invested in the strange, and sometimes almost psychotic, mind of Wengrofsky, but also incredibly entertained by the vividness and originality with which he presents a new punk-rock take on a deeply personal hero’s journey.
The Wolfboy of Rego Park
Far West Press, 2023
Carter Hawkins is an Oxford alum, William Blake disciple, New York resident, and a believer in all things transgressive.
