Illinois Authors

Continuum, New York : 2010.

This is a brilliant study of the creation, impact, and legacy of one of rock's great albums, and a hymn to the nature of teenage fandom. Released in 1979, AC/DC's "Highway To Hell" was the infamous last album recorded with singer Bon Scott, who died of alcohol poisoning in London in February of 1980. Officially chalked up to "Death by Misadventure," Scott's demise has forever secured the album's reputation as a partying primer and a bible for lethal behavior, branding the album with the fun chaos of alcoholic excess and its flip side, early death. The best songs on "Highway To Hell" achieve Sonic Platonism, translating rock & roll's transcendent ideals in stomping, dual-guitar and eighth-note bass riffing, a Paleolithic drum bed, and insanely, recklessly odd but fun vocals. Joe Bonomo strikes a three - chord essay on the power of adolescence, the durability of rock & roll fandom, and the transformative properties of memory. Why does "Highway To Hell" matter to anyone beyond non-ironic teenagers? Blending interviews, analysis, and memoir with a fan's perspective, "Highway To Hell" dramatizes and celebrates a timeless album that one critic said makes 'disaster sound like the best fun in the world.'

Penguin Books, New York : 2008.

The prose poems in Installations invite the reader to encounter, in one extraordinary afternoon, a series of twenty art installations where something fantastic, perhaps improbable, occurs at the intersection of installed and imagined. At the heart of this afternoon is the great, dangerous promise of mystery and renewal that greets each spectator who enters a museum. The presence of other visitors underscores the human spirit of the installations, the pooling together of persons in the sometimes confounding but always refreshing wake of great art.

Continuum, New York : ©2009.

This book examines and explains the almighty impact of the Father of Rock'n'Roll.

Continuum, New York : ©2009.

This book examines and explains the almighty impact of the Father of Rock'n'Roll.

Continuum, New York : 2007.

Camion blanc, Rosières-en-Haye : impr. 2012

Orphan Press, Cordova, TN : ©2013.

In these essays, Bonomo interrogates the dark edges of his suburban youth and explores issues of spirituality, sex, violence, and myth. From the memory of a rebellious Catholic schoolgirl to a coming-of-age story in a porn theater, he turns a prism lens on desire and faith and the body's role in both, and ultimately questions the fallibility as well as the enduring power of memory.