I was intrigued to read A Year on Earth with Mr. Hell . I read the article in the New York Time, Ode to a Punk Rock ‘Sex God’. The hook for this book is that it is an erotic memoir written by a woman in New York about her dalliance with Richard Hell. Shortly after, I added the book on my Kindle. The concept sounded interesting. Here are my thoughts along with an honest review as someone who grew up in the punk scene, and is still active in the scene into my adult years. Albeit without the spiky hair these days… but I do still love a good show!

In the book, A Year on Earth with Mr. Hell, Young Kim writes about her affair with Richard Hell. This is mixed with talks about her previous long term relationship/partnership with that of Malcolm McLaren. Young, initially a law student at Yale turns her focus to Fashion. Young Kim meets McLaren at a young age. From there on she was with Malcolm McLaren till the end of his days, and still continues to manage his estate.

Malcolm McLaren, well known for commercializing punk rock and monetizing off of others in the punk scene is her knight and shining armor. She mentions that McLaren is a narcissist, and in essence that she learns a lot from him. Kim and McLaren are mirror images, which she does not seem to mind stating in her book that to be a part of a relationship with McLaren that was necessary. Kim recounts McLaren seeing Richard Hell and adoring his charisma, style, and image in general. It’s not entirely coincidental that after McLaren’s passing that Kim finds continued interest in Hell. After all, maybe this is her last energetic tie that she has to Malcolm McLaren after his passing.

Richard Hell, former vocalist of such punk bands like the Voidoids and Television, turned poet and writer forms a bond with Young Kim. After some intimate moments, Hell asks Kim to write to him about what they did in the bedroom with a sense of erotic writing. Hell in this book appears to see Kim as his muse. Kim obliges to Hell’s request in writing erotica to him about their encounters. Young Kim continues to write an ongoing log for herself. Hell triggered an artistic process in Kim that later not only backfired on him, but also leaves Kim not looking so great herself. Kim treats Hell with cool responses and gets annoyed with him easily. Most of the time she can’t be bothered because she is more focused on being a socialite. But she still keeps her contact with Hell by a thread.

Hell’s response to Kim’s book is that it is ‘revenge porn’. In writing a memoir, it is easy to use someone’s first name while telling your story. But when it comes to erotica, I have mixed feelings about this. Hell is no angel himself, writing about sexual encounters in his autobiography, I Dreamed I was a very Clean Tramp. But Hell didn’t blast the women by name in his autobiography published in 2014. Ten years later now in 2024 Young’s book is published after the age of consent which challenges her. She perhaps forgot that the talisman swings both ways in the age of consent for men and women nowadays. The moral code of being a decent person seems to be lost here while Kim rides on the coattails of a memoir being an excuse in sharing very personal details about Hell. This in turn leaves her in anything but the limelight.

Kim publishes her sexual encounters with Hell into a book mixing with what appears to be a memoir about her travels, a name drop of who’s who of many debutants which most of us lay people don’t know or care about, and her fashion choices. She also mentions the move The Love Witch a few times, and how she doesn’t much care for it. I liked that movie just fine. Maybe there is a reference I am missing in a message she is trying to convey between the movie and her experience?

In end, I really wanted to like the book. But instead it left me feeling kind of sorry for Young Kim. In the case of this book, it seems Kim, much like McLaren are transactional culture vultures, and both make no bones about taking advantage of people. I think I will stick to Anaïs Nin, and others if I want to pick up erotica.

On the lighter side, I do commend Young Kim for bringing to light that Richard Hell is a poet. I listened to some poetry prose that Hell did in spoken word on YouTube after her mention of this. Poetry to me, is somewhat of a lost art. Not everyone understands the abstractness of it at times. But to me it flows lyrically, shifting your minds eye from one plot to the next. It’s a dance with words. I enjoyed Hell’s poetry reading. I like many different forms of writing. Listening to the reading from Hell also reminded me of what the true art of writing can look like when done well.

-Keri