A Loser's Serenade [Paperback]

D. Allan Kerr (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"D. Allan Kerr has rediscovered the fact that there can be poetry in the lives of everyday people. (He) has reclaimed the genre for his own." -- Showcase Magazine, Foster's Daily Democrat, February 17, 2000

"Kerr's debut tale reveals a sharply etched cast of street characters...marked by poverty, social limitations and temporary escape." -- New Hampshire Sunday News, December 17, 2000

"This irreverent novel, often comical...is Beavis and Butthead meet Pam Smart." -- Concord Sunday Monitor, August 20, 2000

"You've got real human stuff there. No saints. No villains. Complex real people...The book is Alive...I am a fan." -- novelist Carolyn Chute, The Beans of Egypt, Maine

About the Author

D. Allan Kerr is the son of a Methodist preacher, the father of two young boys, and a battleground for the dreamer and the cynic eternally waging war over his ego. Since completing his U.S. Navy stint aboard a helicopter carrier he has pursued opportunities as a deckhand, dishwasher, prep cook, factory worker, road crew laborer, grocery clerk and newspaperman. He also earned an M.A. through the University of New Hampshire's graduate writing program, and still lives in nearby Portsmouth.

A Loser's Serenade is his first novel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: 1st Book Library (December 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585003999
• ISBN-13: 978-1585003990
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,596,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If Johnny Cash wrote a book, March 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Loser's Serenade (Paperback)

...it would be kind of like this one. A Loser's Serenade offers a gritty tale of the depths that the heat of youth and love can drive people to. D. Allan Kerr wrings the blue collar for all its dirty poetry, celebrating the American underside for what it is - a collection of lost souls trying to write a happy ending to their own story. Think Kerouac without the road. If you like writers who call it as they see it and stories that probe the tangled web of our emotions without the romance novel sugar coating, this book is for you.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is not for the fainthearted., June 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Loser's Serenade (Paperback)

A Loser's Serenade does for literature what James Dean and Marlon Brando did for the movies in its overly realistic depiction of American life. D. Allen Kerr writes the story of the beautiful loser coming to terms with first-love in the cynical early 1990s, in a raw but lyrical style. Shep is the hopeless romantic born into the drug and drunk-infested Pit of quaint New England. He prefers Roy Orbison to his own generation's music, and wears the tattoo "Only the Strong Survive." But he is doomed to play the fool to a woman, despite the warnings of modern-day philosopher and drug-dealer Joe Acid. "Promise me you won't be a sucker," Joe Acid tells Shep at one point. A Loser's Serenade brings readers seamlessly through the wranglings of the main character and his Generation Nowhere compatriots as they struggle against the violence and apathy in American culture to get somewhere, and to ultimately understand women, who Joe Acid declares are "the last of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A witty, gritty tale, October 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Loser's Serenade (Paperback)

I glanced at the first page while sitting at a long stop light and ended up pulling into a parking lot to keep reading. Kerr's writing grabs you hard and pulls you into a world that most people cross the street to avoid. His characters are sharply written; I almost expected to see them squabbling on a mean back street somewhere. Doomed romantic Shep knows he's going nowhere, but it doesn't stop him for reaching for a love and a life beyond his grasp -- even as his friends and fate pull him back down. The writing is witty and rich with detail about hard-knocks people grappling with the ageless questions of love and destiny.