Pumping Up the Volume : FAST SOFA, By Bruce Craven (William Morrow/Quill: $15 paper; $22 limited-run cloth; 331 pp.)

It all begins with the cover art. How many of us can honestly say that we haven’t judged a book by its cover? Young people, it is assumed, are especially susceptible to visual images. We are the MTV generation, after all. The cover of Bruce Craven’s debut novel, “Fast Sofa,” is a colorful painting of a guy burning rubber in a souped-up electric-blue convertible. But the fact of the matter is that cool graffiti art does not a good book make. And upon close examination, the cover has several problematic elements.

“Play this novel loud!” the driver in the picture exclaims. This, the publishers think, makes him sound young and hip. The problem is, it doesn’t. Being at least young, if not also hip, I have to say that I think no matter how old you are, you read a novel for any number of reasons, none of them having to do with volume. And as a “twenty-something,” I’ve gotta say that if I’m gonna to play something loud, it’s gonna to be Pearl Jam or Soundgarden, not a novel by Bruce Craven.

This brings us to the second element of the cover, a banner that reads “Free Soundtrack Inside! ‘Woman Hell’ by the FLESH EATERS.” The publishers claim that “this is the first time in publishing history that a novel has been published with an original soundtrack.” It seems to me that there is a good reason why people haven’t published “soundtracks” with novels before; above all, because a good novel can entrance and entertain on its own without musical accompaniment. You’ve never heard of a record going gold because the record company threw in a “Free Novel!,” have you?

Even if I were one of the borderline illiterate American youth we hear so much about, and if I were to fall for the wannabe MTV gimmick of a novel soundtrack, then, being a child of the ‘90s, I’d want it on CD. Period. “Woman Hell,” the novel’s soundtrack, is enclosed on flexidisc, i.e. a 45-rpm record. Nobody I know owns a record, much less a record player. Everybody under 30 listens to CDs or cassettes. (Say what you want about Madonna’s “Sex,” but at least she coughed up the dough for free CDs.) You get a free record and it’s, like, “Thanks, Aunt Gertrude, where’s the Victrola?” For the purpose of reviewing this book, I had to take the flexidisc over to the only person I knew with a record player: my Mom.

Thus, the third element of the cover, one of those “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” stickers, is especially pointless. If you have to play your “Free Soundtrack!” on your family’s record player, then it defeats the purpose of listening to head-banging, thrashing music with explicit lyrics. Even my mother, who is very cool, couldn’t help but bug me with questions. “ What are they saying?,” she kept asking. “But what are they saying ???”

The one additional element of the cover that is perhaps most disturbing is the blond young woman who is falling--or perhaps being thrown?--out of the car. Whichever it is, she’s history, and the guy doesn’t seem to care. Obviously, the publishers have never heard of the dollar power of the female audience; or perhaps they think that to appeal to young men you’ve gotta diss “the girls.”

In any case, the basic concept is unsettling. Such sexist ideas are reinforced in the novel where, for example, older women are referred to as “blind ancient (the C word)s.” People of color don’t fare much better; referring to black gang members, Rick, the main character, makes light of the Rodney King beating, saying, “Good thing the police have been stick-whipping people for speeding. . . . And forget all these (expletive) cholo dudes. Or the Koreans. The Chinese. The Vietnamese. Am I forgetting anyone?”

Well, maybe a few, but we’re not going to help you, Rick.

Rick’s foul mouth, I assume, is also supposed to be “hip,” “raw,” “cutting edge” . . . but I just found it offensive. It does nothing to enhance the narrative because it appears to have no thinking behind it. Much of this book seems to have been created just for shock value, but it’s not shocking. Rick spends much of the first half of the book in a drugging and drinking haze. The publishers glowingly compare Craven to that triumvirate of youthful excess--Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney. The thing is that all the substance-abuse, the bad language and good sex, the making the scene--Ellis, Janowitz and McInerney covered it splendidly before. In the eternal wisdom of bored youth, I couldn’t help thinking: Been there. Seen it. Done it.

Which is unfortunate, because at the heart of it, Craven is obviously a talented writer with something to say. Rick’s frustration with his life and the way he keeps spinning his wheels; Jack’s family and step-family hassles; the love triangle among Tamara, Jack and Rick; and, last but not least, the appearance of the eccentric 42-year-old bird lover, Jules Langdon: These are the interesting elements of the story. But the novel is mired in so many references to popular culture, so many throwaway statements and jargon up the yingyang, that it’s hard to stick with it.

Obviously, the “Fast Sofa” marketing team worked overtime on this book. One only wishes that Craven’s editor had done the same. For no matter what the age group, gimmicks don’t sell books. Good books sell books.