The I Index

Subculture Vulture: A Memoir in Six Scenes

Next in the queue

72

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

63/100

Critics

81/100

Scholars

N/A

Author:

Moshe Kasher

Publisher:

Random House

Date:

January 30, 2024

After bottoming out, being institutionalized, and getting sober all by the tender age of fifteen, Moshe Kasher found himself asking: OK, so what else is out there? Over the ensuing decades, he found his way to the answer: a lot. From his current vantage point as a successful stand-up comic, Kasher looks back on his years careening from subculture to subculture, and he immerses readers in the hilariously strange nuances of each of the scenes he's found himself in. Immediately after getting sober, Kasher began serving as the self-appointed sheriff of his Young People's AA group. He then went on to start his own club-promoting business from scratch in the heart of the 90s California rave scene, and later became a security guard at Burning Man. Once, he caught a man who worked as a coyote at the US border sneaking punk kids into the festival as a side hustle. A child of deaf adults, he's also served as a sign language interpreter, and once helped an angry client cuss out a police officer. Later in life, Kasher went on to reconnect with his Jewish heritage after the death of his father, and now has a booming career as a stand-up comic.

What The Reviewers Say

James Sullivan,
The San Francisco Chronicle
Harrowing, darkly amusing.

The New York Times Book Review
Kasher details his experiences within six distinct communities.

Publishers Weekly
Winning.