Twilight of the City

By Charles Platt
First Published: 1977
In the near future US is in the grip of a downward spiral of economic and social collapse. While the ever-dwindling numbers of the wealthy class live in modern homes in gated communities in the exurbs, the middle class are engaged in food riots in the city streets. The impoverished masses live in ghettos have grown and expanded into enormous wastelands marked by lawlessness and anarchy.

Enter Bobby Black, superstar singer and showman of the emerging ‘Suicide Rock’ genre. Bobby’s partner in crime is the taciturn and calculating Michael, and Lisa, the girl who came to the City with stars in her eyes and a head full of dreams. But dreams die fast and hard on unforgiving streets of the tomorrow’s ghettos.

Together Bobby, Michael, and  Lisa wade through the tight knit inner circle of artists, researchers, and oddballs who are drawn to the Suicide Rock scene as they watch the world collapse around them.