Age of Unreason

Age of Unreason is the third and final book in the young adult “X Gang” series by Canadian author Warren Kinsella. The violence, bloodshed and cancelled record deal that ended New Dark Ages, the previous book in the series, has also dispersed the X Gang and the punk rock scene of Portland, Maine, that once united them.

Age of Unreason begins with an ominous letter warning: “Today, my words – and this, my manifesto – will be written all over the streets.” The manifesto’s author calls himself “Thomas M. Jones”, the name of a founder of the Ku Klux Klan. He parks his truck in front of Portland’s YMCA and detonates a bomb which kills 121 people and wounds 300 others.

Among the dead are two members of the X Gang. Their deaths shock narrator Kurt Blunt, now living in Florida and nursing a serious heroin addiction, into finally getting the help he needs. He returns to Portland and immediately enters the Casco Bay Recovery Centre from where he monitors the investigation of the bombing.

The hostility and mistrust between law enforcement and the X Gang continues into this third book of the series. The local police and FBI investigating the bombing include cops the X Gang know well. Following his now well-established but still surprising powers of reasoning, X uncovers information about the bomber that even experienced members of the FBI fail to find. The article X writes for the alternative magazine Creem about this information angers and embarrasses the police and FBI and places the X Gang right in the middle of the investigation.

Meanwhile, in rehab, Kurt meets Jessie. They quickly develop a close friendship based on a shared interest in punk rock and distrust and disdain for almost everyone else, including the staff at the rehab centre, the “rehab robots”. Jessie discloses to Kurt that she was sexually assaulted. Kurt sees a connection between her story and X’s article about the bomber, and soon enough the X Gang is able to identify the bomber.

These events are interspersed with the bomber’s backstory. The reader learns that Thomas the bomber has been raised and homeschooled by his “progressive-hippy type” parents who rejected American society for an abandoned one-room hunter’s cabin deep in the woods. Books were Thomas’ only friends. As a youngster, he is inspired by the ideas of white, male supremacy he finds in classic texts like Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden”. By the age of 12, he begins to form his own nihilistic ideas inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Although Thomas’ jump from disgruntled, sexually frustrated teenager to mass murderer happens quickly, Kinsella does the transition effectively and sufficiently fleshes out his motivation. The reader does see and believe the forces and causes of influence that create this tragic monster. Less satisfactory is the character called X who has strained readers’ credulity throughout this series. His uncanny insight, perfect perception and wizard-like impact on everyone from narrator Kurt, to his own father, to the judge hearing the people’s case against Thomas the bomber make for some cringe-filled reading.

Also unsatisfactory is the justification of murder that brings this series to an end. When it looks like Thomas the bomber will be freed on a technicality, X Gang member Sister Betty, a rape victim herself, poisons Thomas. Betty confesses to her friends, and X, the most revered and powerful member of the gang, tells her, “You did the right thing, we’ll protect you.” This black and white, un-nuanced transactional resolution shows little regard for Kinsella’s impressionable young adult audience.

However, Kinsella can be congratulated for centering this story around and empowering characters who are marginalized because of their sexuality, gender, or lifestyle. Like the first two books of the series, Age of Unreason is a storehouse of information about punk rock and the culture clashes of the late 80s. Kinsella knows the scene and understands the kids who lived it and loved it. Kinsella also understands the forces and history behind white supremacy, and so this book and the series may also resonate for readers interested in exploring today’s current events surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement.

This novel and “The X-Gang” series in general are morally complicated, and so parents and educators should be engaged with the young readers who choose it.