Say Goodbye: The Laurie Moss Story [Hardcover]

Lewis Shiner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1999

Laurie Moss left Texas in 1994 to make it big in Los Angeles. She had the talent, she had the drive, and fortunately for us, she found a fan in a leading rock journalist willing to tell her whole story. He caught it all: her big breaks, the brutality of the music industry, and of course, the legendary Skip Shaw's return.

Laurie's story is more than a chronicle of the contemporary music scene. It's an epic tale of talent, fame, and a woman's struggle to make it in a male-dominated business.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"What's your second choice for what you want to do with your life?" This question doesn't emerge until late in this soulful elegy for the brief rock-and-roll career of singer-songwriter Laurie Moss, but it haunts the entire novel like guitar-feedback. The melancholy presence of looming failure makes the tired "rise and fall of a star" plot line fresh and original in Shiner's (Glimpses) fifth novel. The unnamed narrator, a rock journalist writing a book about Laurie's slippery climb up the slope of fame, meets and interviews folks on the downslide, who once knew Laurie: a club-owner who gave her an early shot on his stage; a restaurateur for whom Laurie waitressed; folksinger Summer Walsh, who once had an act with Laurie, and who got ditched once success closed in; and the legendary Skip Shaw, rock star of the late-'60s era, who makes another bid for fame as a member of Laurie's band. Shiner sings a song of loss and striving, where hard work and a lucky break guarantee nothing. When Laurie, with all her talent and ambition, finds that even a record deal, cross-country tours and a flashy video on VH-1 can't catapult her career, she must come to terms with her half-failure and, with the untimely death of her Grandpa Bill, choose between faith and despair. Though headstrong, intelligent and resourceful, Laurie never quite makes it to stardom, and her tale is filled with win some/lose some crises; her band breaks the top 100, but never climbs above 89; they get rave reviews, but Skip's shooting heroin; they have a contract with General Records, a company of bottom-line-obsessed fast-talkers. Shiner's extensive research gives the story an authentic feel and keeps it from becoming a soap opera or a wearisome cover version of every other rise-and-fall parable. Honest, unpretentious and heartfelt, this novel remains a haunting refrain. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Rock journalist Shiner has written an engrossing novel about a rock singer who never hits the big time. Laurie Moss is a talented young singer from San Antonio who moves to L.A., works as a waitress, jams with some excellent musicians, betrays one of them, forms a band with several others, makes a few videos, and goes on the road for a nearly endless tour in support of her first CD for a minor recording label, which drops her after disappointing sales. Shiner competently vivifies the uncertainties and boredom of the musician's life, but more impressively, he manages to convey the almost indescribable joy of bringing an audience from a state of apathy to the edge of hysteria. He also avoids most of the cliches of backstage life, though he does give the art of songwriting short shrift. Laurie is neither witch nor naif, and there is no deus ex machina in the last chapter to grant her the success she desires. A revealing look at today's music business. George Needham

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 245 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312241100
• ISBN-13: 978-0312241100
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #561,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Shiner is the author of the award-winning novel GLIMPSES, now in trade paperback from Subterranean Press. Available in the same series of Definitive Editions are his novels BLACK & WHITE, DESERTED CITIES OF THE HEART, FRONTERA, SAY GOODBYE, and SLAM. Subterranean has also published his career-spanning short fiction volume, COLLECTED STORIES. Coming on August 31 is a new political thriller, DARK TANGOS. He lives in North Carolina, USA.

For more information, see www.lewisshiner.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life-affirming look about the myth of music, April 25, 2004

By 

Glen Engel Cox (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Say Goodbye: The Laurie Moss Story (Hardcover)

Like many others, I once imagined a world where I was a famous rock star. In high school I wrote songs at the permanently out-of-tune upright piano and Casio keyboard my parents had purchased for me. I even joined a band for a brief shining moment (one 'gig' only). But most of my music career was in my imagination, which I indulged by crafting an entire persona complete with transparent pseudonym (Gil Chase), a wish-fulfillment history and albums complete with titles, tracklists and lyrics. At one point in college, I attempted to turn it all into a short story.

I am not unusual in this, as the allure of fictional rock bands has nearly become a sub-genre in fiction, including books such as Iain Banks' Espedair Street, George R.R. Martin's The Armageddon Rag, and Roddy Doyle's The Commitments and movies such as Alan Parker's adaptation of Doyle's novel and Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. Although the real stories of rock bands have plenty of drama, an entirely fictitious creation allows the author to emphasize a particular theme that history might obscure.

Such is the case with Lewis Shiner's Say Goodbye, a meticuously crafted fiction about a female rocker in the mold of Sheryl Crow or Edie Brickell. Shiner, who had previously shown a deep understanding and connection to the music world in his award-winning previous novel, Glimpses, creates his star, Laurie Moss, out of his own small-town Texas experiences and dreams while also distancing himself from the subject by a gender-switch thinly veiled stand-in jounalist narrator. The supporting band cast are convincingly individuals and not just foils to Laurie.

While the main plot centers on Laurie's LA musical experience, from opening act in small bars and waitressing in coffee shops through a finished debut album and first tour, it is the framing tale of the narrator's search for the woman behind that song he heard on the radio that has a kind of revealing pathos for those of us for whom music is life-affecting. The book has two climaxes--one for Laurie and one for the narrator--both of which are not exactly the neat little endings of dreams but the bittersweet half-conclusions of life.

Reading Shiner's in-progress auto-biographical essay at his website fleshes in some of the details of the lives of all his characters. While not necessary to enjoy the novel, the essay provides a rare glimpse behind the art, like knowing that Sting was a high school teacher before becoming the leader of the Police and singing about a "young teacher the subject / of schoolgirl fantasy." Like much of the best art, Say Goodbye comes from Shiner's real experiences, filtered into order and meaning from which the reader can obtain much more than a simple story or song. This is the kind of book that makes you as interested in the person behind it (hence my visit to his web site and his essay), although at the same time it warns you about creating false pictures of that person based on your own hopes and dreams.

I feel the need to throw in a final comment as a disclaimer: I know Lew Shiner, having spent time discussing writing with him both as a student and a peer, as well as drinking a beer or two with him. Even though I haven't talked to him in years, I count him as an acquaintance and quite possibly a friend. I do not feel this colours my impression of this book, although it might be why I found the things not written as interesting as the things present in the text.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Say Hey Hey, Rock and Roll is here to stay, November 23, 1999

By 

Travis A. Clark - See all my reviews

This review is from: Say Goodbye: The Laurie Moss Story (Hardcover)

Shiner started off as a hard science fiction writer, then went into his own style, which is about music. Specifically Rock and Roll. Glimpses was a very good mesh of the two, even though it wasn't "Science Fiction" per se. With Say Goodbye, he's gone from a "good" speulative fiction writer to a phenomenal fiction writer. A quick comparison... Roddy Doyle's The Commitments meets the LA Scene. A band built by a driven young woman builds its way to the top and then self destructs.

This book breathes the Rock and Roll society. Shiner's writing capabilities have improved spectacularly, and throughout the book I had glimpses of A Day in the Life in my subconcious. Excellent read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A solid tale of 90's Rock and Roll, January 31, 2000

By 

Marshall DeBerry - See all my reviews

This review is from: Say Goodbye: The Laurie Moss Story (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book a great deal--it's a solid, well written book that gives the reader an inside view of the record industry and the struggling artists who sometimes get a break. Shiner has a great facility for communicating to the reader the "feel" of a scene, like the description for how a music track should be laid down with the different instruments. For those of us whose contact with the music industry is from buying CD's, Shiner is able to effectively communicate the business (ie, non-glamourous) side of the business very well. I particularly liked the description of how Laurie's music videos got shot--now I better understand why Fiona Apple was upset about how her first video turned out. My quibbles are few--towards the end of the book, it seems everyone in "the industry" that has some sort of power is always described as being about 40 something in age. I guess there no 30 or 50 somethings that have any type of power. Also, the final few chapters seem to be rushing to the conclusion; it might have been useful to go a bit more into Laurie's life over the past year. But, I am definitley going to recommend this book to others as a great story that describes what it takes to break into the music business today. The characters really come to life...