WATERLOO SUNSET

A manically careening debut collection from Davies, the lead singer and songwriter for the 1960s band The Kinks and author of his 'unauthorized' autobiography, X-Ray (1995). Davies devotes the first half of the volume to his apparent doppelgÑnger, the former British pop/rock icon and current has- been Les Mulligan, and Mulligan’s nebbish of an agent, Richard Tennent. Impoverished and always near mental breakdown, Mulligan resists attempts by Tennent and others to revive his career and instead 'confront[s] the demons' by panhandling in public parks and undertaking other misadventures that presume to paint the tortured soul of an insecure true artist. With a confused structure and lines like 'He turned to another lyric. Or was it a new chapter in his life?,' this first section seems a mixed-up, unfinished mess. What follows, however, appears to have unaccountably sprung from the mind of a seasoned and mature author, not the aging hipster who wrote the aforementioned. This series of vaguely connected pieces includes the charming “Mr. Pleasant,” in which a dandy accountant at the end of his career briefly considers a dalliance with a dominatrix for hire, discovers his inability to empathize, and, as do many characters here, reconciles himself with the Faustian bargains he’s made. Muriel, a silent vagrant who passed briefly through the narrative of Les Mulligan, is awarded a magical account of her own, 'Voices in the Dark,' in which she serves as the mute therapist who hears everyone and judges no one. In 'Return to Waterloo,' the final'and finest'entry, Davies writes a gem of a character study. Frightening and funny, it portrays the quiet, seething rage and misogyny of a serial rapist who just wants some respect. When Davies abandons the embarrassing navel-gazing of a musician gone stale, he creates storytelling as surprising and unique as the song lyrics he wrote decades ago.