Fuel-Injected Dreams: A Novel [Paperback]

James Robert Baker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2003

Here is the cult classic whose central character is based on the legend of Phil Spector. So there’s this record producer Dennis Contrelle who was huge in the early 1960s, creating epic trash masterpieces from girl groups and surf bands, a veritable Wagner of pop, but he retired at the end of the decade and disappeared into his mansion of tack somewhere in L.A. He’s still there, still married to the singer with his biggest group, a woman effectively held prisoner by the drug-damaged Svengali who can’t let her go ... But remember: “This novel is a work of fiction ... any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.” Our narrator is a hip late-night DJ, Scott Cochrane, who grew up on the music of Dennis Contrelle, and had a teenage crush on Sharlene, the singer for the Stingrays, whose classic ’60s pop album, Fuel Injected Dreams, is tied up in his mind with his first girlfriend, Cheryl, who mysteriously disappeared the summer of the album’s release. When the DJ belittles one of his tunes, the producer phones in a complaint, and Cochrane is soon lured into the Contrelles’ world of sadomasochistic sexual intrigue.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This deranged Spector fantasy is probably the most convincing and entertaining fictional pop book I've ever read."

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press (August 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560255358
• ISBN-13: 978-1560255352
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,813,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It haunts your dreams, May 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fuel-injected Dreams (Onyx) (Paperback)

My sister, Liz, stole this book from our local library in 1988. She couldn't get a copy so told them that it had been lost. I first read it in 1990 because she talked about it endlessly and I wanted to understand what was so great about it. Once I started it, I couldn't put it down. I read it at home, at work, on the toilet, even (dangerously) while driving my car. I finished it on a car park on a Friday afternoon and immediately burst into tears. No book had ever had that effect on me before. We still only have one copy between us. It's missing the cover and the first few pages of publishers notes but we still read it twice or three times a year and quote bits to each other from time to time.

I could not do this work justice in review. My feelings are split between wanting the whole world to read the book and wanting to keep it to myself for fear that mass appeal will take something of the magic away. During the first reading, I found myself imagining it as a film, complete with score, sets and director's shouted instructions. Now that I hear a film is in the offing I'm nervous for the 3 reasons. 1. As with the book, will the magic disappear when it is exposed to the masses 2. Will justice be done or will essential parts, phrases and above all the screenplay in my mind be blown away by it's adaptation 3. Will it bomb and JRB be held to ridicule

If you're involved with the making of this film please, please, PLEASE do it straight and keep the faith.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pure Brain Candy, November 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Fuel-injected Dreams (Onyx) (Paperback)

Somehow I found a copy of this book sitting on my parent's coffee table. I picked it up and read it at the tender age of 13. I have never let it leave my side since. This book is pure brain candy. The storyline is absolutely thrilling, the characters are well thought out, and the suspense is incredible. I certainly wouldn't call it "modern literature" but it rates in the same category as "Bright Lights Big City" and "Story of My Life".

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book you will pick up and read bits of long after you have finished it, November 21, 2005

By 

Janna Jansen (Waiheke Island, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fuel-Injected Dreams: A Novel (Paperback)

This is a fabulous read. I picked it up because I loved the cover (not the one pictured on the Amazon site). A beautiful girl with 60's style beehive and a perfect body leans against a mint electric blue stingray; if you look very closely her eyes are the same shade of blue.

The book swings between Scott's teenage years with Cheryl and adulthood twenty years later without her. His love affair with Cheryl came to an abrupt halt when she announced her pregnancy and he reacted in a typically 16 year old way...

Move forward 20 or so years and Scott is a graveyard-shift radio DJ. He doesn't think of Cheryl as much as he used to, but she still haunts his dreams. Strangely, she looks just like the girl on the album cover of his favourite band, the Contrelles. The album came out the same summer Cheryl disappeared.

One day he plays some Contrelle music on his show and then criticises it, and Dennis, the musical genius behind the band, rings in to complain. Scott consequently meets up with him, and even garners an invitation to his house. That's when he sets eyes on Sharlene (the lead singer), still as gorgeous as she was on the album cover, still looking exactly like Cheryl (why?), and completely unattainable by Scott, as she is Dennis' wife. Dennis is a drug-fuelled schizophrenic maniac and given to shooting people that piss him off.

The book is so descriptive, from the sex (there's lots), to the descriptions of the 60's teenage beach scene to Dennis and his maniacal mood swings. Completely unlike anything I have ever read, this book has given me a taste for more of James Robert Baker -his writing style is absolutely original and fun to read.