Genre:
Literary Fiction
Description:
“Busker's
Holiday is the story of McKay Chernoff, a Columbia University grad
student with a harmonica in his pocket and a blues band in his
background. Desolate and despairing after a disastrous romantic
breakup, McKay decides to fly off to Paris and reinvent himself as a
street performer.
What
follows is an epic summer voyage into the busking life, propelled by
the mad exploits of Billy Lee Grant, a fearless young guitar shredder
whose Memphis-to-Mississippi pedigree and Dylanesque surrealism make
him, when he explodes into view, precisely the partner McKay has been
yearning for.”
Author:
“An
associate professor of English and Southern Studies at the University
of Mississippi in Oxford, Adam Gussow is also a professional blues
harmonica player and teacher.” This appears to be Gussow's first
work of fiction. He has written at least three works of non-fiction.
Appraisal:
In the
beginning, I wasn't sure about McKay and (even more so) his classmate
Paul who he befriended. They seemed a bit too pretentious. But as I
shared in their European adventures, I slowly came around. Busker's
Holiday read like a
fictional version of a slightly over-the-top travel memoir with a lot
of self-discovery for the main character. Kind of a coming-of-age for
a twenty-something, yet with the writing style you'd expect from
literary fiction. Not a combination I've seen before or would have
ever dreamed might exist.
FYI:
A
minimal amount of adult language. Adult themes.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No
significant issues.
Rating:
**** Four Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate
word count: 45-50,000 words
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