Kill Your Friends

Kill Your Friends
	First edition (UK)
Author	John Niven
Country	United Kingdom
Genre	Satire, Crime Fiction
Publisher	Heinemann
Publication date	7 Feb 2008
Media type	Print
Pages	336
ISBN	0-434-01799-X
Followed by	The Amateurs

Kill Your Friends is the debut novel by the Scottish writer John Niven. It was published in 2008 by William Heinemann.

Plot summary

The novel is set in 1997 at the height of the Britpop music scene. The protagonist, Steven Stelfox, is unhappy about his current position as an A&R agent in the record company he works for in London. Stelfox, uninterested in most music, is jealous of his coworkers' success in finding successful musical acts and attempts to climb the career ladder amidst competition.

Critical response

The protagonist and plot have been compared to American Psycho and been described as "mad, gleeful nastiness".[1] The work is considered satirical, and is described as an "all-out assault" by The Independent,[2] and as having "the horrible, slightly metallic tang of total authenticity" by the Philadelphia Weekly.[3]

Film adaptation

A feature film has been made based on the novel, directed by Owen Harris, with a script written by John Niven. Nicholas Hoult, Craig Roberts, Tom Riley, and Georgia King star in the film.[4]

gollark: Technically no, if you know all the other participants and their order.

gollark: I couldn't make it work properly, so I'm working on other things instead.

gollark: ```The "apiomemetics" strategy will be as follows:- if this is the first turn, fork process- if you are the parent process, wait for the child to terminate- if child, use a strategy and see how well it goes- at 100th turn (matches are AT LEAST this long), if child, send message to parent via shared memory and exit- repeat with different strategy- store best strategy against current opponent somewhere, use on all subsequent turns```

gollark: And also it infinitely loops somehow.

gollark: Right now it doesn't actually test it.

References

Housham, Jane (31 January 2009). "Mad, gleeful nastiness". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
Gibbs, Jonathan (12 February 2008). "Kill Your Friends, by John Niven". The Independent. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
Wells, Steven (21 April 2009). "Kill Your Friends". Philadelphia Weekly. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
Barraclough, Leo (10 March 2014). "Music Biz Satire 'Kill Your Friends' Starts to Shoot in London". Variety. Retrieved 11 March 2014.

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[guardian-1] Housham, Jane (31 January 2009). "Mad, gleeful nastiness". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 July 2017.

[The_Independent-2] Gibbs, Jonathan (12 February 2008). "Kill Your Friends, by John Niven". The Independent. Retrieved 18 July 2017.

[Philadelphia_Weekly-3] Wells, Steven (21 April 2009). "Kill Your Friends". Philadelphia Weekly. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 18 July 2017.

[variety-starts-4] Barraclough, Leo (10 March 2014). "Music Biz Satire 'Kill Your Friends' Starts to Shoot in London". Variety. Retrieved 11 March 2014.