- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition edition (May 4 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312280734
- ISBN-13: 978-0312280734
- Product Dimensions: 20.9 x 13.9 x 1.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 240 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,220,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
ParkerAan edgy, critically acclaimed singer songwriterAmakes a splendid literary debut with this collection of shorts. The 10 stories, told in the first person, follow the droll and occasionally wistful Brian Porker through a series of hobbies, vocations, girlfriends and drug-fueled exploits. (Porker's misadventures, one suspects, are based somewhat self-effacingly on Parker's own.) And what a hard-knock stew of episodes it is, from growing pains and street fights to drug-induced headaches and humiliations at the absurd hands of the music business. In "The Sheld-Duck of the Basingstoke Canal," young Brian learns a sweaty, bug-bitten lesson about accumulation, social status and the rights of all living creatures. "Bad Nose" is a hilarious John Wayne Bobbit-meets-Gogol inspired story about a tired 22-year-old menial laborer whose refusal to take care of his infected sinuses drives his annoyed wife to take matters into her own hands. In "Well Well Well," a wonderfully vindictive tale about a city slicker trying to hold his own with a couple of hardscrabble well diggers he hires, Porker explains, "I was just some rich yuppie from the city, I wasn't going to lord it over the locals by handing out free herpetology lessons, so I just nodded and looked concerned, not mentioning that he'd have to go to Africa to get bitten by a puff adder." Gruesome and laconic in the tradition of Roald Dahl, Parker's shorts are equal parts wit, invention and sweet cruelty, readers should enjoy frissons of schadenfreude. Author tour. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
From rock music legend Parker comes a debut collection of ten stories, only intermittently engaging, that chronicle the life of a young bird-egg enthusiast who grows up to be a jaded but respected figure in the rock 'n' roll scene.Young Brian Porker's fascination for birds' eggs in all their speckled glory, which is the subject of the first story, The Sheld-Duck of the Basingstroke Canal, turns him into an increasingly rapacious collector, until he accidentally drops one of the eggs, cracking it to reveal the fragile, still living form inside. This theme of real life overtaking fantasy is repeated later in Brian's life, most notably in Me and the Stones, when the now-respected rocker Porker is invited by Keith Richards to audition to replace the newly dead Mick Jagger (run over by a bus after stumbling off a curb stoned), only to be rejected--not for his lack of musical ability but for the way he fills out his leather pants (or doesn't). While several tales deal with the crassness of the music life, others leave it behind to examine decidedly underclass themes, including encounters with thugs and punks, such as the one in the title story, about two skinheads who threaten Brian and a buddy as they drink and dope their way through a midlife fishing trip, until the buddy drops a name that sends the bully boys slinking away. Chloroform, one of the rawest and best pieces here, pits the pre-rock Brian against dead-end working conditions in an animal testing facility with a slow-witted co-worker, to whom Brian sells a motorbike on the installment plan, only to realize that the buyer hasn't understood the agreement.Despite some original touches, mostly in the earlier stories, the collection overall relies on familiar, effortless images of disillusionment and sordidness. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
At that time of the day-about eleven A.M. on a brilliant July morning-my grey plimsoles had wings on them. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
At that time of the day-about eleven A.M. on a brilliant July morning-my grey plimsoles had wings on them. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Starts OK, Goes Astray,
By Jake W. (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Carp Fishing on Valium (Hardcover)
I started reading this as a beach book and I enjoyed the first, maybe, eight stories. The stories about his childhood and adolescence were charming and well-written. I had to put this book down, though, when Parker strayed into the dreaded "live out my unfulfilled rock fantasy" territory. Vignettes are interesting. Reading about some obscure rocker's fantasy to sing with the Stones via a self-gratifying, markedly unclever writing style is *not* interesting. If you must buy this book, tear out the last few chapters before you read it.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't waste your time,
By jdt2 (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Carp Fishing on Valium (Paperback)
A collection of random, boring, and poorly written vignettes. I guess Parker's clout as a recording artist helped him land a publisher. It surely wasn't his talent. The title and cover art are the best parts...
2.0 out of 5 stars
Clever Name. Bad Book.,
By
This review is from: Carp Fishing on Valium (Paperback)
Maybe it's just my fast paced brain, but I found that this book often read like a transcript of a conversation between completely uninteresting people. It's slow, it's confusing, and often consists of almost incoherent conversations between people who cuss at each other a lot.Fans of Graham Parker may find me harsh, and if you're a fan of Graham Parker you may want to give it a try. For me, the book just didn't live up to the clever title.
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