CH3’s Mike Magrann Announces Debut Novel “Miles Per Gallon”

DiWulf Publishing House have announced they will release Miles Per Gallon, the highly anticipated debut novel from Mike Magrann (CH3) on October 31st with special events planned to celebrate the occasion. Miles Per Gallon is the journey of a band of friends traversing the strange world of North America during CH3‘s 1983 summer tour. Culled from hazy memories and adolescent journal entries, Mike’s literary achievement chronicles the bonds of friendship, the drunken misadventures of a punk rock band out in the wild and the kind of self-discovery that only long stretches of time spent cramped in a van can bring. This beautifully written story is funny and poignant, occasionally prurient and painfully earnest. In it, Mike draws on his biracial family experiences to parallel his life as a young punk in the ultra-conservative ’80s.

Throughout the story Mike encounters revelations both profound and mundane as he and his closest friends discover an America their history books never taught them. Written as a novel and weaving adroitly through both past and present, this narration of summer adventure is also filled with punk rock history. Think of a punk rock Stand By Me meets Catcher in the Rye meets The Air Conditioned Nightmare, but with vibrant, real-life characters like Joey Shithead (DOA), Youth Brigade and The Stretchmarks populating this diaspora of the 1983 North American hardcore circuit. This is much more than a band book or a punk history, it is a challenge. It is a soulful dig into the past; a search for reconciliation and meaning. It is an unwitting time capsule that effortlessly captures a 20th century spirit and aesthetic that is in danger of being lost forever. Mike’s skill lies in his gentleness: his words carefully crafted around feeling, more impressionistic than impressive, and used to perfection to convey the exuberant potential of youth and energy.