Sound on Sound

By Christopher Sorrentino

This inventive first novel deflates the same myths of rock and roll that it glorifies in a vivid exploration of pop culture and the shattered society that emerged from the 1980s. Hi-Fi, a third-rate New York bar band, plays another in a desultory series of low-paying gigs as Reagan's inaugural speech drones from a TV in the background. Equipment falters, band members flex their egos, and the regular crowd shifts from boredom to borderline violence. What begins as an inauspicious account of a typical evening at a nightclub soon gives way to a stupefying catalog of trivia about Hi-Fi, the band with the "suburb sound and the suburb feel."

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1564780732
• ISBN13: 9781564780737
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Length: 210 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.8"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

I love Pessoa as much as the next guy.

Really, it's true. Like the old saying goes, if I could teach myself Portugese I would never leave the house. While I must leave my compass screwed into its niche at the end of my trusty commando knife, purchased from "Oriental Imports" at the mall when I was 12, that is to say many years ago, and certainly not yesterday, I am not lost. No sir, these things are not lost on me with or without that compass, even as I travel, knifeless across these fine United States, chilled by the long shadow cast by Borges. Sound on Sound huh? Well, I know this much-- it shouldn't be left to wither, nor disappeared in the night like so many Arab-Americans in recent years.

Just As Pleased As Punch

We are very happy to report that this book is available in the small trim, for older fingers like mine. I find it very difficult that every time a publisher wants to announce for all to see that they feel strong enthusiasm for one of their titles they bind it in the 6"x9" trim size. That is very difficult for a senior to hold, particularly if she suffers from occasional bouts of rheumatoid arthritis. I've held many a large stiff thing in my hands over the past six decades, but hardcover books are getting to be too much for me. While I question Dalkey's decision not to bring this wonderfully portable and holdable book out in paperback, I'm delighted that their parsimony has made it possible for me to hold the book throughout the seven months it's taken me to get through the thing.

KAYLENE, I AM SO SORRY...

...and I'll send some dough even before the test results are back. Thanks for your continued interest in my work.