BROAD STREET

author:
CHRISTINE WEISER

Fiction
230 pages
PS Books

Christine Weiser is a talented writer.
 
Her first novel, Broad Street, conjures the early nineties Philadelphia bar-band scene so well that you feel the need to wash the smell of stale beer and cigarettes out of your hair after reading. The protagonist and her mates in the girl band Broad Street (get it?), all in their early to mid-twenties, abuse themselves handily, and the scenery is strewn with broken guitar strings, empties, discarded condoms, a mushroom trip gone awry and many, many hangovers.
 
Those who troll the Philly music world will know that Weiser has nailed locations like the Khyber and the Trocadero. She does a great job of describing the progress of a show, the rivalry between bands, their pretensions and the happy fact that distorted amplification can hide a lot of sins. There is a very funny description of an ill-conceived double bill with a singer-songwriter who trills plaintively about his dog.  Weiser drops band names here and there for an occasional guffaw. Favorites include:  Smarmy and Ass Fault.
 
But the book reads like it still needs a good editing. Someone should have pushed Weiser to take the relationship between the heroine and her parents a little deeper. As it is, they are somewhat stock suburban parents—a worrying mother and a disapproving father. Same for the little sister dynamic. Also, the prose could use a little massaging here and there, and words and phrases are sometimes repeated too often or too soon (personally, I think you can only use the word “behemoth” once in any book under six hundred pages). One particularly jarring mistake that should have been caught: early in the book Monica Lewinsky is referenced. Ms. Lewinsky was not thrust to fame until 1998, and this book takes place in 1993 and 1994. (Not to give anything away, but the ending is centered around the death of Kurt Cobain – April 5, 1994.) OK, maybe I’m being a bit anal, but this stuff messes with your suspension of disbelief, folks.
 
Still, Broad Street is a fun and edifying read, particularly for those who like alt or indie music. It’s definitely an attempt at literary fiction, not chic lit.
 
Broad Street deserves some attention. And Weiser deserves a better editor and a second gig.

purchase via IndieBound