Wayward Saints

Wayward Saints by Suzzy Roche (of the folk band the Roches) follows the lives of Mary Saint, lead singer of the once indie-famous band Sliced Ham, and her friends and family. Mary left her home of Swallow, New York as a teenager, leaving behind her mother, Jean, and abusive father, Bub. She travels the world with Sliced Ham. The band starts to grow in popularity, but they become weighted down by drugs and liquor. Her lover and fellow band mate, nicknamed Garbagio, falls intoxicated from a balcony and dies one night. Sliced Ham peeters out from there, and Mary slips into depression and alcoholism. She recovers, eventually, and moves to San Fran. There, she meets a tranny named Thaddeus at a homeless shelter, and the two move in together. It is then that she gets the call from her mother, asking her to return to Swallow to play a show at the town’s high school.

Jean has been living on her own since she checked Bub into a nursing home after he suffered a stroke. When the English teacher at the high school approached her about contacting Mary to do a show, Jean was hesitant but complaint. Throughout most of the book she anxiously awaits her daughter’s return, trying to understand her abusive relationship with her husband and distant relationship with Mary. She coincidentally meets Garbagio’s father—his wife is in the same nursing home as Bub—and the two strike up a friendship. Jean is also incredibly devout, and much of the book focuses on how she grounds herself with her faith.

There is a cast of secondary characters that float in and out of the book, but Mary and Jean are the staples that keep the novel propelling forward. Although the book is told in the third-person omniscient, I found most of the closer looks at secondary characters to be a bit unnecessary. I was always most interested in Mary and Jean.

Wayward Saints is Roche’s debut novel, and it is somewhat uneven because of that. For example, Mary seems very authentic and her character is fully conveyed to the audience. Somehow, she doesn’t fall into the stereotypes of “alternative rocker chick” and manages to seem fresh and interesting. However, there are other parts of the book that are less realistic or fleshed out. The conversations between Jean and Garbagio’s father are ones I know are supposed to be meaningful but felt a little trite to me. Whenever I was reading the dialogue, I kept thinking that their conversations needed to go a little deeper, and the word choice needed to be a little more original. The dialogue itself felt flat, even though I cared about both of the characters and their relationship. “This is exactly how I would expect older people to interact with each other,” I found myself thinking.

Another place of unevenness was the theme of religion and faith. The references to religion and the characters’ attachment (or discord) from God are constantly present throughout the novel. However, Roche needed to expand the theme a little more. When Mary was a child, she thought she was visited—and fondled—by the Virgin Mary.  Mary finds this memory to be somewhat of a comfort, and states the Virgin gave her the strength to sing. Her devout mother finds this vision appalling. By the end of the novel, I couldn’t quite understand what we were supposed to feel about religion. Is it a support system? A fantasy? A crux? All of these things?

I did appreciate the way the book looks at the music industry. It is critical of it (for its drugs, money, alcohol) but also encapsulates the magic of a good live show, which can be a quasi-religious experience in itself. I think in the future Roche will be able to flesh out her novels a bit better. I was reminded of when I reviewed High Fidelity. One of the things I loved about that book was that it was equal parts a wonderful book about music and a wonderful book about relationships. Wayward Saints is a wonderful book about music and an ok book about relationships. More than anything, the book just had the feeling of being published a draft too soon. But the prose is beautiful, clean, and descriptive. And I have faith that Roche’s second novel will be even and masterful.

High Fidelity

Rob is an asshole, or as British author Nick Hornby writes in High Fidelity, an arsehole. I’ve seen the movie High Fidelity before, with John Cusack playing lead character Rob, and move-Rob is an asshole too. But book-Rob is definitely more of a jerk.

High Fidelity is about record store owner, music enthusiast Rob and his lawyer girlfriend/ex-girlfriend Laura. The two split up, and then Rob is left trying to make sense of the break-up, of Laura going to live with someone named Ray. He is also left trying to figure out his life, his career direction, and what to do about his floundering record store. He contemplates death. He sleeps with an American singer-songwriter. This book is all about a man in transition, trying to figure out his life, so naturally I could relate to Rob a bit. Rob is sort of what would happen if a mid-twenty something was actually a mid-thirty something. He is still directionless, immature, and self-centered. His closest friends, Dick and Barry, are similar.

But there is something sympathetic about Rob, and admirable too. He has impeccable music taste. Rob reminds me of the jerky boys I put up with in high school because they had good taste in music. And at the end of the day though, he ends up being the kind of character you have a soft spot for, although I still can’t figure out why. He isn’t completely horrible, I’ll give him that, but he is still a real big jerk.

High Fidelity is great because it is an in depth study of Rob’s character and of his relationship with Laura as well as an amazing commentary on long-term relationships. However, it is also a book about music. Rarely can a book about music and a book about relationships be combined so brilliantly, so that each of the themes is equally expressed. Usually one theme overshadows the other.

Written in the first person, some of Rob’s music-musings really hit home for me. Rob, Dick, and Barry constantly list their top fives (favorite singles, best songs about death), so you can easily get an insight into everything these well-versed characters enjoy. In my favorite music-music, Rob is discussing some of his top favorite songs, most of which are sad (“Only Love Can Break Your Heart” by Neil Young, “Last Night I Dreamed Somebody Loved Me” by the Smiths, etc.), “Some of these songs I have listened to around once a week, on average (three hundred times in the first month, every now and again thereafter), since I was sixteen or nineteen or twenty-one. How can that not leave you bruised somewhere? How can that not turn you into the sort of person liable to break into little bits when your first love goes all wrong? What came first—the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music?” (Hornby 25). 

So, whether miserable or happy, here is a playlist of some of Rob’s favorite songs:  

High Fidelity playlist--On Youtube1. Let’s Get it On—Marvin Gaye
2. Last Night I Dreamed Somebody Loved Me|
3. Janie Jones—The Clash
4. Thunder Road—Bruce Springsteen
5. Got to Get You Off My Mind—Soloman Burke
6. The Look of Love—Dusty Springfield
7. This is the House that Jack Build—Aretha Franklin
8. Baby Let’s Play House—Elvis Presley
9. Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag—James Brown
10. Back in the USA—Chuck Berry
11. So tired of Being Alone—Al Greene                 

A Song For You

When I reviewed Patti Smith’s Just Kids, I discussed the nature of the relationship she had with artist Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1960s-70s. Smith achieved great notoriety since those prior decades and Mapplethorpe—although less well-known—did achieve some fame as well.

Just Kids reminded me of a book I read last summer, A Song for You by Kathy West. The book is another merging of creative non-fiction, autobiography, and memoir—much like Smith’s book—and also follows the era of the 60s and 70s through the lens of music and art, as well as transitions from young adulthood to adulthood. Unlike Smith and Mapplethorpe, writer West and her lover and friend Rick Philp ended up pushed to the side of musical history, left out of the mainstream tales the 60’s—although their story is just as important as Smith’s.

West’s writing style is different from the romanticism and thick imagery offered in Just Kids, although it has the same slow but thorough pace. Unlike Just Kids, A Song for You offers more of a colloquial retelling of West's life and relationship with Philp through concise prose instead of poetic language.

Philp joins a garage band called the Myddle Class as the lead guitarist. They headline for the Velvet Underground before anyone cared about the band, back when Al Aronowitz, the blacklisted journalist, was their manager (not the legendary Andy Warhol). They tour and meet Jimi Hendrix. The band and 

West befriend Carole King and Gerry Goffin. West continues to have a friendship with King and Goffin through most of the book. Just as Smith did in Just Kids, A Song for You offers an intimate portrait into the lives of the 60s most well-known names.


West’s friendship and romance with Philp changes throughout the years and throughout the book. Things begin to take a grim turn as Philp’s friendship with his roommate, a man nicknamed Dog, begins to get possessive and terrifying. Dog seems to believe he has some type of control over Philp—Dog resents West and other women for their closeness to Philp. One night, Dog brutally murders Philp. The Myddle Class disbands and Philp and West’s story becomes buried in the past. Their names disappear from the limelight for decades, until West decided to publish this book. 

A Song for You is surely to be of great use to anyone who wishes to learn more about the garage rock scene from an inside perspective. The book serves as an entranceway into the lost tales of the 1960s and 70s. Where as Smith achieved her success as a musician, Philp's was unfairly and violently cut short. The Myddle Class is band that represents transition, for they will be forever cemented in the phase between a promising start and major fame.

A Song for You playlist--Listen on Youtube playlist--Listen on Youtube

1. Don't Let Me Sleep Too Long--The Myddle Class (This video was created by author West herself)

2. All Along the Watchtower--The Jimi Hendrix Experience 

3. Gates of Eden--Myddle Class

4. So Far Away--Carole King

5. Wind Chime Laughter--The Myddle Class

6. Sweet Jane--The Velvet Underground 

7. Free at the Wind--Myddle Class

8. Up on the Roof--Carole King 

9. Mr. Tambourine Man--Bob Dylan