The Wishbones

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Summary: A rare book that "gets it" about the musician's experience.
Review: Despite the plethora of books on popular music, very few ever succeed in portraying the milieu and experience of the working musician. The nature of the subject is far from that which is imagined by fans, involving perspectives, values, and outlooks common to those on the "inside" and only rarely fully perceived by others. Nick Tosches's "Hellfire," about the extraordinary life of Jerry Lee Lewis, powerfully reveals some of the struggles of a particularly volatile participant in the creative process. And Oscar Hijuelos's beautiful "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" sensitively portrays the feel of life for the musician. Tom Perrotta has taken a different tack with "The Wishbones" but he joins the short list of those who "get it" about the musician's experience. Many readers have commented on the book's truly delightful characters, with good reason. Additionally, the humor in the book is the kind which leaves one--immediately--wanting to tell one's friends about it, so that it might be shared. As a musician, however, this reviewer can safely testify that "The Wishbones" is directly on target; remarkably so. No, not every musician is precisely like those in Perrotta's gang. But the feel is right. Very right. This is the kind of writing that gives the word verisimilitude a good name

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Summary: Totally appealing characters
Review: I was disappointed when "The Wedding Singer" came out, because now if they ever make a movie of "The Wishbones," people will think "The Wishbones" unoriginal. (And I was hoping "The Wishbones" _would_ be a movie someday). This was a remarkably engaging read -- the rehearsal dinner and wedding scenes were especially sweet reminders of why your wedding can be the happiest day of your life. And there's one hilarious chapter involving neo-Nazis that had me on the floor. I didn't quite understand why Dave fell for Gretchen, but that turned out to be a surprisingly small flaw in a very fun story!

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Summary: I wish i knew these guys!
Review: I loved this book! though its all about characters and the plot is fairly thin, i loved these guys and since i am originally from jersey, i think I know a few still like this. But the guys in the band are emminently likable and you just get involved in their lives. having met the love of my life at a wedding after a personal crisis, I can identify with Dave's indecision about the exotic lover or stable fiance. if you like character driven novels, this one can't be beat!

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Summary: Dead-on and hilarious
Review: I howled reading this painfully accurate story of a wedding-band musician trying to maintain his rock and roll dreams when he's entering the age of Relaxed Fit. I give it a 9 only because I found the ending disappointing, but I have to say the description of the JFK assassination musical is worth the price of the book alone.

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Summary: To live or to exist, that is the question.
Review: With the fear of death as his motivator, our main character pops the question to his long term girlfriend. She accepts and a date is set. Our story begins as our 31 year old main character commits to something, finally. He has lived at home in Jersey with good old Mom and Dad all his life working a part-time courier job. His passion is his band, the Wishbones, who on weekends rev it up at the local Holiday Inn banquet room and other suburban reception venues . He embarks on an affair with an urban hipster bridesmaid from the other side of the river, and the question is, will he or won't he be wearing that ring come the big day? Tom Perrotta is a fine writer who's sparse but precise use of language invokes vivid imagery and strong characters. The supporting ones are far more interesting than the narrator, in particular his bandmate who finds true love and follows his path to compose a hilarious musical. The sad sacks who populate this novel made me cringe. They want little from life and fear of failure has kept them from trying or doing much of anything. When someone interesting comes into our main characters life I found myself exhilarated thinking, finally. When our main character recedes and throw his hands up resigned to his "fate" I howled in protest. A novel that could involve me so strongly clearly has something going for it.

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Summary: DISAPPOINTING....
Review: Tom Perrotta pushes his readers through the roller coaster of emotions that are experienced duiring the fleeting days of bachelorhood. The Wishbones has all of the ingredients to make a great read and I had aspirations of claiming it as a favorite.

Rating:
Summary: A great read
Review: The characters in this book are so engaging, and so thorougly portrayed. A bunch of average Joes,who had big dreams, but haven't done much with their lives. Some of the touches are incredible. One of the characters has drafted a musical about JFK's assassination. It's hilariously preposterous, but at the same time it sounds like a great idea. There's a terrific send up of readings at poetry clubs, and the character who gets the most airtime -- Dave -- is terrific. He's caught between his long-time girlfriend, and a new, intriguing woman he meets right after he decides to propose to his old standby. Even the more pathetic characters, a guy who doesn't do much but hang out in his basement playing guitar and listening to music is intriguing. (He's a great talent, but a case of stage fright at a high school talent show made him "go underground.") I didn't want to put this book down. I'm eagerly anticipating another Perrotta book. This one is being re-released in paperback version in April. (I intend to buy it for my wife. I read it when it was out of print and borrowed a library copy.) If you like good characterization, with stylish but unobtrusive writing, try Robert Cohen's The Here and Now and Steven Schwartz's Therapy. Those two, along with the Wishbones, were far and away my three favorite reads last year.

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Summary: American HIGH FIDELITY
Review: A fun novel, very much like Nick Hornby's excellent (and admittedly better) book, HIGH FIDELITY.

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Summary: Tom Perrotta rocks the house with a wonderful debut novel.
Review: "The Wishbones" is as enjoyable as spending time with some classic Springsteen albums. It's a novel of dreams, of love, of life and it's also laugh out loud funny. Perrotta knows how to find the humor of real-life situations without exaggeration. Dave Raymond and this wonderful cast of supporting characters are well-drawn and memorable. If you enjoyed Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" (also a superb novel) you'll not want to miss "The Wishbones."

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Summary: Chutes and Ladders for Adults
Review: Tom Perrotta grew up in Garwood, Union County. The Wishbones, Perotta's second novel, is set in New Jersey. If you're familiar with Union County, Route 22, and the Parkway in mid-Jersey, you'll figure it out. Perotta's first novel, Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies, was a splendid coming-of-age piece set in Jersey. His second novel focuses on the members of a "wedding band" who play weekends in those large multi-hall wed-ding factories along the Parkway. The band members have come of age chronologically, but they're still trying to shape roles for themselves. The book uses Dave Raymond's de-scent into marriage as its centerpiece. Dave Raymond hasn't completely given up his dream of Rock & Roll success. But, he's put it on the back burner for so long he knows he's close to the end of the dream. Dave knows he's a good guitarist, but also knows he's not a great one. He realizes he can imi-tate the guitar playing greats about as well as any of the kids in the thousands of New Jer-sey garage bands. He knows ". . . if you set your mind to it and invested in the right giz-mos [you could] fool people for a couple of minutes into thinking you were Eric Clapton or Eddie Van Halen, or even Jimmy Hendrix." He can imitate, but he doesn't have a voice of his own, isn't talented enough to become one of the greats. Life can be like the child's game of Chutes & Ladders. In the game, one false move sends you down a chute where you begin all over again. In life, each false move sends us screaming down a chute of ever narrowing possibilities. Late at night, in one of those fits of openness we're all sometimes plagued with, Dave suggests marriage to his off-and-on girlfriend of 15 years, Julie. By the next morning, his parents are congratulating him on settling down, while sharing the anxieties they had about his future only yesterday. By that evening, he's having dinner with his future in-laws and, for the first time ever, seeing his girlfriend in an apron making stuffed cabbages or some other homey dish. Dave, a 32-year-old live-at-home-in-his-childhood-bedroom college drop out and some-times courier with a rusty Geo Metro, lives for music; it's his soul, even if it's only weekend wedding-factory music. Wedding bands, wedding photographers, wedding singers - they all know it's over. Perrotta shows this graphically when Phil Hart, a wed-ding musician for decades, dies of a heart attack while playing a try out for a wedding. Dave doesn't exactly see it, but his is Phil Hart's future. Almost as soon as everyone else has announced his engagement, Dave meets an exotic poetess who lives in Brooklyn Heights and takes him to poetry readings. Brooklyn Heights can be exotic compared to the Jersey 'burbs, all poetesses are exotic, and her comfortable presence in New York City raises Dave's dreams to heights he seems not to have known before. She shows him the City in a way that causes him to lose "the sheep-ish I'm-from-New-Jersey feelings" that ruin all of our visits to the Big Apple. Dave's dilemma reduces to one that is common to all of us: "He loved Julie. That was an indisputable fact. The problem was he wanted Gretchen." But Dave is already in the chute ending in marriage to his childhood sweetheart. That chute is being greased by every step he takes with Julie, every step Julie take on her own; and every push they get from their families. Julie is a reality; Gretchen, the exotic poetess is a goal. When Dave is with Gretchen he thinks about moving out of his childhood bed-room, living his dream of Rock & Role fame, anything but what's at the end of the chute he, himself, entered. Julie and Gretchen figuratively tear him apart - love, fidelity, home and hearth, these come with Julie's safety. Wonder, risk, fame and fortune - can Gretchen the poetess deliver these without risk? The Wishbones is an easy, delightful read. Perrotta handles dialogue well and larger themes even better