A richly textured, entertaining tale of musicians struggling with their demons.
Members of a rock mega-band wrestle with drug addiction, scandals, gay sexuality, and a manipulative record label while trying not to lose their lifelong friendship in this sprawling show-biz novel.
Monroe’s yarn follows four boys who live in a nameless American town and attend St. Cecilia’s Catholic School, where they suffer savage beatings from a brutal math teacher but get mentored by kindly music instructor Sister Pat, who nurtures their talents. After high school, the quartet’s garage band, called The Sapphires, is spotted by Colin Anderson, the sharklike head of Sea Glass Records. Colin brings the musicians to New York City and shepherds them into the big time and a haphazard name change to the titular street where they grew up. The narrative follows the band members’ intertwined lives: Vince DiPaulo, the group’s leader, who chafes at Colin’s control and gets heavily into pot, LSD, and speed; sexy front man Steve Russell, whose constant womanizing strains his marriage to a Hollywood starlet; backup vocalist and songwriter Dave Corcoran, who marries Shelia Somers, not knowing that the child she is carrying is by her rapist and not him; and guitarist Kevin Bennett, a squeaky-clean but deeply closeted gay man who lives in dread that his proclivities will be discovered and ruin his career. The novel deepens these complications as the 1960s progress. The band undergoes several makeovers, moving from blue-suited doo-wop to bell-bottomed psychedelia; Vince enters a downward spiral of drug abuse that makes Colin and Steve maneuver to kick him out of the group; Dave is shaken by a family tragedy that sends him on a spiritual quest to India; and a blackmailer reveals Kevin’s secret to Colin, who has him committed to a conversion-therapy rehab unit, where he endures torturous aversion treatments.
Monroe, a former casting director, paints a complex, nuanced portrait of the entertainment industry and the personalities that inhabit it. (Colin, for example, is a domineering jerk, but his keen eye for what works in pop music underlies the band’s success.) The author’s prose is punchy, colorful, and evocative, whether he’s describing Vince’s first acid trip—“He floated about the room, and the physical contours of his body began to disappear and meld into the pigments.…Everything that was concrete and real seemed illusive and fake, and everything illusory and unseen began to take on form and shape”—or aversion therapy. (“Screaming through his clenched teeth, Kevin felt like he was being incinerated alive, as every muscle in his body constricted and the jolt of electricity pulsated through his hands and his private parts.”) But Monroe also gets at the hidden, achingly familiar psychological forces that drive his characters—even a hanger-on, as when Shelia’s mother reflects on the poverty that would be relieved if her reluctant daughter would marry Dave: “It sat like a weight in the pit of her stomach, and her body shook with the recognition of it. Images of scarcity and lack played out in her mind’s eye like the endless reels of a bad horror movie, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t silence the relentless voice of doom that echoed in her head.” As lurid as their excesses can be, the author grounds his players in motivations that feel universal.
A richly textured, entertaining tale of musicians struggling with their demons.Pub Date: March 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781633813373
Page Count: 394
Publisher: Maine Authors Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
