≡ [PDF] A Song Without a Melody A Novel of the '90s by Ace Boggess Ace Boggess 9781988292052 Books

A Song Without a Melody A Novel of the '90s by Ace Boggess Ace Boggess 9781988292052 Books

Download As PDF : A Song Without a Melody A Novel of the '90s by Ace Boggess Ace Boggess 9781988292052 Books

A Song Without a Melody A Novel of the '90s by Ace Boggess Ace Boggess 9781988292052 Books

A wise man once wrote, “Autobiography is made like sausage, only the butcher and the donor animal are the same person.” The umami of verisimilitude flavors the pages of this book about an edgy young newspaper journalist who does not so much struggle with addiction as undergo a long, sweaty session of lovemaking with it. The post-coital depression is a beast, but satisfying from a literary point of view, underscoring the fact that the narrator’s writer routine trumps his junkie routine. Also to be found between these covers: deft, exuberant writing evoking sex, music, philosophy, joy, sorrow, love, loss, and the hip, seamy side of Pittsburgh in the 1990s. Highly recommended.


Tags : A Song Without a Melody: A Novel of the '90s by Ace Boggess [Ace Boggess] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Collin Hearst is a timid young reporter covering the Pittsburgh music scene during the early 1990s. Largely inept at dealing with other people,Ace Boggess,A Song Without a Melody: A Novel of the '90s by Ace Boggess,Hyperborea Publishing,1988292050,FICTION General

A Song Without a Melody A Novel of the '90s by Ace Boggess Ace Boggess 9781988292052 Books Reviews

Existential but with a destructive yet insatiable appetite for loud rock and the insanity that often follows this clearly marked trail of booze, drugs, sex and musicians. A first-rate debut novel from Ace Boggess that unravels like a neo-noir sprint through the stage door of insanity and back again, breathless with pounding heart.
More than just sex and drugs and rock and roll, this entertaining novel presents young feature writer Collin Hearst searching for meaning as he searches for the near-love of his life, rock diva December Leigh. There's even a murder making a cameo among Hearst's travels around Pittsburgh. This is a coming-of-age story, one that would make a great movie for its crisp scenes and action and entertaining dialogue. I think this would make a great summer read, as the pages flow along with wit and vividness. Oh, not to mention the smattering of philosophical and musical name-dropping. Actually, a lot more than just name-dropping. These frame the restlessness and waywardness of the plot and characters, elevating the novel to more than just the lurid to the deserving. Along with Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, Nine Inch Nails and other rock heroes, Camus, Hume, Milan Kundera and other influencers dot the pages, brain-worming their way into Hearst's mentality and Boggess' message. The characters are clear and emphatic, including a sloppy, opportunistic bar owner, an emaciated 90s-hero drug dealer, a nosy and voyeuristic newspaperman, a queen bitch editor, a faithful straight girl tossed in for contrast, a mega-star-gone-pariah, a surprising magazine writer with a dysfunctional past that's smattered all over her present, and more. This cast of characters sets off Hearst not quite like a jewel, more like a guitar solo amid a long, rambling song, set up for inspection, central, shrieking and mumbling in waves of contrast, the part of the composition you remember both for itself and for its trademarking of the composition.
The cover of this book proclaims it to be "a novel of the '90s," but don't expect to find O.J. Simpson, Beavis and Butthead, Hootie and the Blowfish, or even flannel shirts here. More than a simple period piece that tells you what you already think you know, this is a novel of the real '90s as they were lived by real people. True, the book is full of sex and drugs and rock 'n roll, but all that stuff is on the surface. There are a lot of real emotions underneath, and that emotional through line is what kept me riveted right up until the end. Then again, this book was especially easy to keep reading because the prose is clear as a bell. Boggess is a journalist, which means he can describe things clearly and accurately without getting bogged down, but he's also a poet, so there are some wonderful lyrical passages sprinkled throughout. I don't know what else to say except that it was a joy to read and I wish that there was more, always the sign of a good book.
A SONG WITHOUT A MELODY A NOVEL OF THE '90S, Ace Boggess, Hyperborea, 2016, Canada

You’d have to look far to find a novel that grabs hold of your guts the way A SONG WITHOUT A MELODY does. Yes, it is a novel “of the 90’s” with plenty of sex and drugs – as well as convincing insight into that era’s fringe music scene – but it’s also so much more. The 90’s are crucial to grounding the story, but it’s the torment of the characters – tortured by their consciences and an amazing array of bad, almost disturbingly logical, decisions – that will ravage your heart and make you want more. Kudos to Ace Boggess, one of America’s finest younger poets, for giving us a novel as bleak as Verlaine, as quirkily honest as Dickinson, and with its arms as wide open as Whitman.
A wise man once wrote, “Autobiography is made like sausage, only the butcher and the donor animal are the same person.” The umami of verisimilitude flavors the pages of this book about an edgy young newspaper journalist who does not so much struggle with addiction as undergo a long, sweaty session of lovemaking with it. The post-coital depression is a beast, but satisfying from a literary point of view, underscoring the fact that the narrator’s writer routine trumps his junkie routine. Also to be found between these covers deft, exuberant writing evoking sex, music, philosophy, joy, sorrow, love, loss, and the hip, seamy side of Pittsburgh in the 1990s. Highly recommended.