“What about The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta?” asks Clerisy Press marketing/publicity head Howard Cohen. “I’ve played in bands since I was 12 (I’m 41 now and gigged last weekend) and that one really captured the feel of it.” Cohen also recommends Tommy Womack‘s memoir, The Cheese Chronicles, while novelist Laura Zigman mentions Everything I’m Cracked Up to Be, by Jen Trynin. And Richard Melo, whose Jokerman 8 actually is something of a rock novel, had some thoughts about the genre in his role as a reader and critic. “I am looking forward to the day when a novel finally captures the essence of rock ‘n’ roll, and I haven’t seen it,” he says. “Something that catches up many rock novelists, and Jonathan Lethem is no exception, is that fiction can’t keep a tune. When you read lyrics to a song you know already, you can’t help hearing the tune. When you read fictional lyrics composed by a fictional band, you get nothing of what the experience of the song is really like. Rock novels tend to abound in this kind of stuff. Readers cannot connect to songs they’ll never hear.”
Aha—but Lethem has anticipated you, sir! Earlier this week, on WNYC’s Soundcheck, he presented a batch of recordings that bands had made of his lyrics, including three songs by local indie rockers The Night Time. From what we’re told, he’ll be doing it again with Kurt Andersen on Studio 360, and then the band’s going to open for his appearance at Housing Works next Friday night.
(Thanks to everyone who wrote in with suggestions; I’m sorry we we’re able to get them all in there, but one reader sent us a link to an Amazon customer’s list that’ll keep rock fans busy…)