Contemporary Fiction Book Reviews

Vaporized by Victor Levine follows the exploits of up-and-coming/down-and-out musician Jon Cells who’s looking for his big break in the New York music scene of the early eighties. In the meantime, he’s working at a perfume factory, which is under investigation by the FBI for possible drug connections. John Cell gets caught in between the rivalry between two familes, the Iranian Monsouris and Italian Pecorinos, when all that he wants to do is make music.

What makes Vaporized shine over other rock and roll novels is its authenticity. Jon Cells himself was an actual musician and the record he’s working […]

Brothers in Arms by Jack O’Riley follows a group of friends who spend a lot of time drinking (and drinking and drinking) who takes their antics too far and end up violently beating up a husband and wife with a pious vanity plate. The victims of the crime are then pegged as snobs as the small band of misfits then become a major phenomenon in the Twin Cities, and the city is plunged into a debate about the nature of crime and punishment.

There’s a distinct Raymond Carver feeling to O’Riley’s narrative, especially in the lack of quotes for dialog […]

Dumped years ago by his college sweetheart Lila, and slightly lazy in his job going nowhere as a local hotel waiter in the same town he grew up in, Jason Chapman embarks on a quest chasing The One That Got Away when Lila sends him a wedding invite.

With no “plus one” to take along, he must spring into action with only his parents and slightly raucous and laddish best mates to assist him into firstly finding a date for the looming wedding so he doesn’t look desperate in order to impress and woo Lila out of her intended marital […]