Lynn
Breedlove, Tribe 8’s frontwoman and lyricist, is releasing her first
novel on St. Martin’s Press in April 2002, available in stores and
through Insight/Out book club.
Jim is a speedfreak bike messenger whose devotion to her drug habit rivals
the intensity of her adoration for Ally, her brilliant stripper girlfriend.
When she's forced to choose between the drugs and the girl, time and again
she succumbs to her addiction--but is still unable to attain the ultimate
high she seeks...
From
the first moment whipping down rainy Nob Hill, to sitting just out of
sight backstage at a strip joint, to shooting twice as much coke as necessary,
you wonder why you let this Jim bastard drag you on all her adventures
and why you actually like her, when she’s a sneak, a liar and a speed
freak. Maybe because bike messengers have all the fun, 
especially
when they’re the new Lancelot, trainhopping on a quest for the Holy
Grail known as The Rush.
Is
the Rush in barroom brawls, back alley fucks, or on tour with an all girl
punk band? In a squat, a New York drag club, a riot, or a boxcar? Will
she find it with a fox, will she like it with some lox? Is it in True
Love...? Nah. More likely bliss has been right in front of her the whole
time, so close, so everyday, she took it for granted.
In
the meantime, see the cartoon world of an eighties punk dyke: her gorgeous
love objects, the cops, the ass-kickings, the battles with the needle,
the hallucinations. From The City That Knows How to Alphabet City and
all the truckstops in between, from gun-running and molotov cocktails
to revelations that clean her up and send her riding into the SF fog,
search with her to find the only thing worth living for. Sequel pending.
If
it were a film, it would be a shot with a helmet cam, with surreal, Tim
Burton-like sets, careening camera angles, with Clea Duvall and Angelina
Jolie making sweet love down by the freeway.
Breedlove’s Tribe 8 bandmate Silas (Flipper) Howard, of By Hook or by Crook fame, shopped it around Sundance as her next film project.
ADVANCE
PRAISE FOR GODSPEED:
“Jim
is the funniest, most complicated lead character to come down the pike
in a long,long time....I guess it wasn't enough for Breedlove to front
a stellar punk band, be a tireless activist, and inspire legions of girls,
she just had to emerge as a great american writer as well.”
--Kathleen Hanna of BIKINI KILL and LE TIGRE
"San Francisco punk dykedom has a new angelheaded hipster in Lynn
Breedlove's engaging speed demon Jim. Breedlove's pageturning prose is
a whooshing downhill adrenaline rush --she'll make you look at familiar
scenery like you've never seen its gritty beauty before."
--Carol Queen, author of REAL LIVE NUDE GIRL and THE LEATHER DADDY AND
THE FEMME
"GODSPEED
is the most important novel this side of NAKED LUNCH. Imagine THE ODYSSEY
set to loud punk music and featuring a tough butch hero on a quest for
her stripper girlfriend. Add drugs, sex, violence and Breedlove's brand
of fierce wisdom and you are looking at the twenty-first century's first
epic novel. This book runs strictly on diesel and it is a ride you won't
want to miss - godspeed!"
--Judith "Jack" Halberstam, author of FEMALE MASCULINITY
"This wickedly good genre-bender kicks off fast and keeps the pace,
in a
voice so simultaneously reckless and assured you know it's bound to show
you more than a thing or two. Godspeed is a major rush, and a major godsend,
and Breedlove's writing rocks as hard as her music."
--Brian
Pera, author of TROUBLEMAKER
Lynn Breedlove, chief singer and songwriter for infamous dyke-punk band Tribe 8, has been performing throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe for over adecade. She currently teaches at the Harvey Milk Institute in San Francisco,where she lives. Breedlove hasn't touched any drugs or alcohol since 1990. Godspeed is her first novel.