Customer Reviews

Anything Goes: A novel

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"Anything Goes" drifts along, raveling out the thread of its story in a leisurely style that's at once engaging and attractive. Taking place over a year and in many locales, "Anything Goes" introduces us to Jesse, a disaffected and somewhat bitter young man traveling through his life as a member of a band called...you guessed it...Anything Goes. As a band name, the title [is bad].... But as a theme for the novel it works quite well.

Jesse, abandoned as a child by his mother and physically abused by his father, has become a man who doesn't expect good things from the world. As he matures throughout the pages of this book, he discovers himself in ways that are both subtle and poignant. This is a quiet story that stays with you long after you've read it...and I recommend giving it a read!

Filled with themes of identity, family, and maturity, Bell's thirteen book takes place over a year, following a Nashville-based cover band as they travel down the eastern seaboard and up into Vermont, playing roadhouses a few weeks at a time. Jesse is their bassist, and for him, the ritual of being on the road creates a sense of security and family, since his mother abandoned him soon after birth, and his alcoholic father beat him all through childhood. Jesse is happy to follow the warm weather around, playing music, scoring occasional women, and then hanging out at band leader (and surrogate father figure) Perry's farm during the off-season.

This steady existence is skewed somewhat when Jesse's father shows up clean and sober, and looking for reconciliation. Part of this involves introducing him to a neighbor whose singing knocks his socks off. Soon enough, she's in the band, and they have great and greater success, all while Jesse struggles to identify his feelings for her and hers for him. Nothing earth-shattering happens in the book, but the relationships and issues are all captivating and feel true to life. Jesse 's mother was a Melungeon (a dark mysterious Appalachian people whose origins are unknown) and the band's drummer is black, allowing Bell to touch on racial identity issues here and there as the band drifts though white-trash venues all through the South. The towns, bars, and motels all spring from the page as real places, with history and grit to them.

Over the course of the year's cycle, Jesse comes to terms with his past, his heritage, and his future in a very non-soap opera way. This book could have easily drifted into sappiness (think Oprahish) and never quite does. The last portions get a touch heavy-handed, but never so much as to spoil the easygoing tone of the book. Musicians may especially enjoy this book as there is a great deal of language attempting to describe how Jesse feels about hearing and playing music, and how it infects his whole being. One last note, the first chapter originally appeared as a short story in the "It's Only Rock And Roll" anthology.

I found this one very readable--the prose flowed right along. The handling here and there of racial issues was interesting, though I was disappointed to see another kind, decent, one-dimensional "magical black friend" helping out a white character at the center, such a typical American literary and cinematic device. But the protagonist isn't fully white, which is an interesting twist, but not one that really ends up going anywhere. Still, those quibbles aside, the movement of Jesse away from his father's abuse toward autonomy, and apparently toward forgiveness of his father, was very effective and honest. Nearly everything in this novel felt very real, and it taught me some things about making music too.

This book is my first exposure to Madison Smartt Bell, and I'm impressed. The book begins with a debauched scene that, frankly, was too much for me, but I persevered. And as I persevered, so did the main character, a 20-year-old who's playing bass guitar with a cover band. That character (Jesse) tells about the ups and downs of a musical life on the road, while he's also searching for a higher beauty in his life and a deeper understanding of his past.

I am the producer of a music festival, so I have a pretty good understanding of musicians, even though I'm not a performer. And I can say that the depictions in this book ring true about the love that most musicians have for what they're playing, what they're learning from others, and what they hope to create on their own. When you join those strong elements of the book with a young man's "coming of age" saga, it's a very satisfying combination.

A mildly engaging story about a Southern bar band called Anything Goes told from the point of view of Jesse, the bands' 20-something guitar player. We follow the band as they travel from dive to dive, losing members, gaining members and finding their groove.

Since Jesse is the narrator, the focus is mainly on him: his relationship with his formerly abusive, alcoholic father, his crush on Estelle, the band's new lead singer and his attempts to sort out his post-adolescent angst regarding family, women and music. The other band members don't feature too prominently and aren't very well-developed, although the book would have been more interesting if they were. Nor did Bell delve too deeply in Jesse's past relationship with his dad. There's also a little "surprise" relationship involving Estelle and Jesse's dad, but unless you're really thick, it won't come as much of a shock.

It seemed to me that something was missing from this story. Maybe it was the shallowness of the characters, maybe it was the meandering nature of the novel; there was no real plot, just a succession of gigs at roadhouses up and down the East coast. It was, however, a convincing depiction of life with a bar band, and that managed to hold my interest enough until the rather lackluster ending.