The Wishbones - Hardcover

Perrotta, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399142673 ISBN 13: 9780399142673

Publisher: Putnam Adult, 1997

Synopsis

A thirty-one-year-old rock'n'roll guitarist decides to get married, only to begin an affair with Gretchen, a New York poet, and finds himself torn between letting his dreams die and having a steady gig. A first novel.

About this title

About the Author

Tom Perrotta teaches writing at Harvard.

Reviews

A funny and charming first novel from the author of a highly acclaimed collection of linked short stories, Bad Haircut (1994). Like its predecessor, Perrotta's agreeably manic chronicle of prolonged adolescence is set in suburban New Jersey. It covers a chaotic six months (MaySeptember 1994) in the life of Dave Raymond, who's 31 and still lives with his parents, works as a freelance driver for a courier service, plays guitar for a local band (the title group), and enjoys a more-or-less committed relationship with Julie Muller, the girl he's been ``with'' since their high school days. When Dave impulsively proposes marriage and Julie eagerly accepts, the looming specters of stability and fidelity severely test Dave's fatigued mettle--as he and his fellow Wishbones endure a series of bittersweet misadventures recounted with irresistible tongue-in-cheek deadpan brio. The novel is brimming with sharply observed secondary characters, including bandmates Buzzy (a happily married alcoholic), Stan (ever morosely unlucky in love), and Ian (who's writing a musical about the assassination of JFK); a former doper turned priest; and Gretchen, the girl with whom Dave happily dallies even as his wedding day draws nearer. Perrotta offers such beguiling set pieces as a wedding at which an elderly band singer dies onstage; a hilariously described poetry reading (where Gretchen performs, and which features ``a philosophical dialogue between Jack Kerouac and Charles Manson. . . [that] turned out to be an excuse to talk really fast and say the word `man' a lot''); and the Wishbones's disastrous gig playing for a group of neo-Nazi survivalist skinheads. Nor does the climactic wedding itself disappoint: It's a wonderfully cacophonous celebration of life during which the tamed Dave ``already. . . feels himself being transformed into a historical figure, frozen into anecdote by his unborn children and grandchildren.'' Pure pleasure. And it'll make a terrific movie. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Dave works as a courier during the week, but his real passion is playing guitar on weekends with a pretty good New Jersey wedding band. They play in places that sport "the unmistakable odor of mediocrity." Their repertoire includes "a ten-minute medley [of] 'I Will Survive,' 'Boogie-Oogie-Oogie'...capped by a full-length version of 'Y.M.C.A.,' a song that had returned with a vengeance from the land of musical oblivion." For 15 years, Dave has drifted through an on-and-off relationship with the same girl, Julie. Then one night he witnesses the on-stage death of an older lead singer with another band. Shaken, he returns home and without blinking says to Julie, "Let's get married." Then panic sets in. He gets involved with a sexy bohemian poet even as Julie begs him to give up the band, something he had never even remotely considered. At times hilariously funny, at others times wonderfully lyrical, and filled with subtle as well as obvious pleasures, this is an awfully good novel about a young man's reluctance to grow up. Perrotta has published a book of short stories, Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies (LJ 4/15/94). Highly recommended.?David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Just like a good rock 'n' roll song, Perrotta's first novel about the lead guitarist in a New Jersey wedding band is straight-ahead, unpretentious entertainment. After witnessing the onstage collapse of a 73-year-old singer (right in the middle of his deadpan rendition of Madonna's "Like a Virgin"), 31-year-old Dave Raymond starts to feel intimations of his own mortality, and he does the unthinkable. He pops the question to his long-suffering girlfriend, whom he's been dating on and off for 15 years. But as soon as they set the wedding date, Dave embarks on a torrid affair with a New York City poet. Like Nick Hornsby's High Fidelity (1995), The Wishbones is a smart, very funny look at one man's ambivalence toward adulthood and commitment; it also offers a colorful cast of band mates and an obvious affection for its characters and their music. Perrotta is also the author of a well-reviewed collection of short stories, Bad Haircut (1994). Joanne Wilkinson

Edition details

• Publisher: Putnam Adult
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399142673
• ISBN 13: 9780399142673
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290