Saturday, October 2, 2010

Rock N' Roll Will Save Your Life

This was my first time to read Steve Almond, even though his writing has been recommended to me by various friends on numerous occasions. This will not be my last attempt, even though my first attempt was fairly "meh". 

I'm not sure why I didn't enjoy this book. It's by a middle-aged, married, white guy with a kid who begins the book with an essay on Bruce Springsteen. In theory, this book was written just for me.

Unfortunately, the book turned out to be less about a love letter to rock music and more about a series of "you should have been there" kinds of stories along the lines of "man, back in the day when we didn't have any money and used to go see Nil Lara..."

He wraps up writing about his man-crush on Bob Schneider. That wasn't the way to win me over.

I guess I had hoped it would be funnier or more thought-provoking or intriguing or something. I enjoy this sort of music talk with my Uncle Norm, but in large part because he's my Uncle Norm. This book felt like the sort of music talk I'd have with my uncle's college roommate whom I had, heretofore, never met. I kept trying to nod my head along, but my heart wasn't in it.

Still, Almond's not a bad writer and I look forward to seeing if his essays or short stories fare better than this did.

No comments:

Post a Comment