Srab – Krejčík Přemysl (2022)

A novel about bullying and the inability to stand up to tyrants. It was all just a game and an acknowledged pose: musicalizing horror themes, stylizing into the roles of aggressors and murderers, wearing terrifying masks on stage. Until Ripper picked up a real weapon and turned false posturing into reality. Beneath the surface, things had long been boiling. Who is Ripper? A young guy with a girlfriend, a future, and a well-functioning band. But he also has a despotic cousin, confidence that cannot be undermined due to its low level, psychological issues, and enormous anger towards someone who once hurt his girlfriend. Coward is a novel about psychological bullying, about the inability to resist, about the reluctance to accept oneself. At first glance, it is a story of a tough band and its peculiar members: besides the unstable Ripper, there is the perpetually stoned and annoying Gram, the hot-headed Manson, and the easy-going Judas. In reality, however, the prose tells of violence in its various forms — from the grotesquely exaggerated to the exhaustingly mundane.