The Great Leather Generation Swindle
101
far from being considered as representative figures of punk music (in
comparison to, for instance, the Sex Pistols) and seem to openly ignore that
punk music originated in Great Britain and not in the United States. Mafias uses
the notion of punk in its most general sense—stripped from any specific
historical and cultural connotations—merely to signify rebellion, rejection of the
past, and an overall contemptuous attitude towards culture and society.
Besides rock music, North American literature was also presented as a
determining influence of the Leather Generation. In what could be considered
the first novel of the trend, Stories o f Kronen, the characters lend Bret Easton
Ellis’s novel, American Psycho, to each other and display an unhealthy
fascination for Bateman, the psychotic protagonist of Ellis’s narration, and the
media critics, following the back cover descriptions and the publishers’
declarations, emphasized the influence of the Beat generation and Raymond
Carver upon these young Spanish writers. In actuality, the Beat generation’s
influence upon its modem Spanish Leather counterpart often boiled down to a
simple quote from Jack Kerouac at the beginning of a novel—as in the case of
Ray Loriga’s Fallen From Heaven (Caidos del cielo)—and to the use of
narrative cliches lifted from typical Hollywood landscapes, such as endless
highways, seedy motels, and deserted gas stations, acknowledged symbols of
loneliness and of the fragility of identity.
As the enthusiasm for Leather Literature started to dwindle, most likely due
to a lack of real substance, some critical voices began reproaching these writers
for taking on the easy side of the American tradition and discarding writers such
as William Faulkner, John Dos Passos, and Truman Capote. It was also argued
that they were using linear plots and simple language in order to v