Confessions of an Antichrist

The pseudonymous Skadi, who shares a name with the book’s protagonist, delivers a twisted, darkly comic debut about the rise and fall of a fictional Norwegian black metal band. In a small fishing village near Oslo, Skadi manages the band Baphomet’s Agony, comprising guitarist Snorri, drummer Peter, bassist Edvard, and dead-eyed singer Suffer, most of whom have complicated interpersonal histories. Determined since she was a teenager to “demolish everything that most of you hold dear,” Skadi hopes to catapult the band to fame as a ploy to corrupt the masses. For a moment, that goal seems within reach, when the group is offered a recording contract after a harrowing gig that hospitalizes 17 audience members. Slowly, however, the opportunity unravels, with the band’s savage angsts—plus a marauding band of Christians and a group of metal snobs who think Baphomet’s Agony are posers—pulling them apart. Skadi is more concerned with ladling on maximum depravity than delivering a coherent, well-paced narrative, and the plot takes frequent detours to recount sordid interludes from the band members’ childhoods. Readers with a taste for pitch-black humor will find a few laughs; others will be put off by the prevailing tone of adolescent fantasy. This fails to strike the right chord. (Mar.)

This review has been updated with further information.