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The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self-Defense
Reunited for a funeral and leery of one another, a family compares splintered memories. Will bathes his grandmother. Mel gives her wig a haircut. Norman is not prepared to take over his father’s club. Jesse has never known how old he is. They each cope with limited options and murky desires.
An irreducible collage, as intuitive as it is formal, "The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self-Defense" drifts between storylines and perspectives. Long bus rides through a post-industrial Gothic Midwest, Classic Rock, and compulsive brawls hum a requiem for the late-night life of Stone Claw Grove.
An irreducible collage, as intuitive as it is formal, "The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self-Defense" drifts between storylines and perspectives. Long bus rides through a post-industrial Gothic Midwest, Classic Rock, and compulsive brawls hum a requiem for the late-night life of Stone Claw Grove.
373 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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347 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
January 27, 2012
This review used to be here, and now it's here:
http://thelitpub.com/im-going-to-go-o...
http://thelitpub.com/im-going-to-go-o...
November 19, 2012
This is a DNF review. A pdf was provided by the publisher as a review copy.
I really wanted to like this book. I really, really did. But I got sixty or seventy pages into it without meeting a single character that I really cared about, and without getting into any part of the story that I could sink my teeth into; the main characters, an estranged family, have gathered together for a funeral--their grandmother's, I think? They all kind of seem like awful people, and not in a compelling way; also, just when you start getting into one character's story, the author skips on to the next, giving the whole beginning a disjointed feeling--not in a good, intriguing way, but in a frustrating way.
I put it down because I can't get that far into a book without having something to grab me and keep going with it.
I really wanted to like this book. I really, really did. But I got sixty or seventy pages into it without meeting a single character that I really cared about, and without getting into any part of the story that I could sink my teeth into; the main characters, an estranged family, have gathered together for a funeral--their grandmother's, I think? They all kind of seem like awful people, and not in a compelling way; also, just when you start getting into one character's story, the author skips on to the next, giving the whole beginning a disjointed feeling--not in a good, intriguing way, but in a frustrating way.
I put it down because I can't get that far into a book without having something to grab me and keep going with it.
November 23, 2017
I sadly, feel bad I asked the library to buy this.
November 24, 2021
Tim Kinsella is primarily known as the lead singer and songwriter of the legendary emo punk band, Cap'n Jazz, though some may argue that his work with Joan of Arc is more substantial. There have been other bands, too, and Kinsella has maintained a presence in the underground music scene of Chicago for 25 years now.
He is an acquired taste. While Cap'n Jazz is catchy, their lyrics are spindly and obtuse, the music is loud. Joan of Arc is rarely catchy, the lyrics are even more obscure, and the music is experimental. In any case, Kinsella is well-worth seeing live for his presence alone. He doesn't try to entertain, and while he can be very provocative, it always stops just short of becoming awkward or uncomfortable.
After a while it seems, Kinsella wanted to expand into other fields. Enter his experimental fiction, and Joan of Arc is NOT to popular bands, as this book is to popular novels. While it is still "obscure" and "experimental," it is a much more mainstream offering than his music generally attempts. It's far from traditional, but it is more readable than most experimental novels.
In passing it's worth noting that this book takes place in Michigan, and while I had not fully grasped the mythos of that state in 2014 (and still really have not), the tone and texture are informed by its setting. I would particularly recommend this book to the members of the Detroit band Protomartyr, for they seem to inhabit similar mentalities.
http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2014...
He is an acquired taste. While Cap'n Jazz is catchy, their lyrics are spindly and obtuse, the music is loud. Joan of Arc is rarely catchy, the lyrics are even more obscure, and the music is experimental. In any case, Kinsella is well-worth seeing live for his presence alone. He doesn't try to entertain, and while he can be very provocative, it always stops just short of becoming awkward or uncomfortable.
After a while it seems, Kinsella wanted to expand into other fields. Enter his experimental fiction, and Joan of Arc is NOT to popular bands, as this book is to popular novels. While it is still "obscure" and "experimental," it is a much more mainstream offering than his music generally attempts. It's far from traditional, but it is more readable than most experimental novels.
In passing it's worth noting that this book takes place in Michigan, and while I had not fully grasped the mythos of that state in 2014 (and still really have not), the tone and texture are informed by its setting. I would particularly recommend this book to the members of the Detroit band Protomartyr, for they seem to inhabit similar mentalities.
http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2014...
Want to read
March 29, 2012From Flavorwire: "“Tim Kinsella’s The Karaoke Singer’s Guide to Self Defense is a miracle for people who love rich and hefty sentences. It’s a double miracle for those who want their rich and hefty sentences to add up to a dreamy, heavy narrative exploration of a disjointed family and midwestern culture.” —Natalie Edwards, Editor at featherproof books
July 2, 2014
a totally engrossing and disturbing story, I really enjoyed this book, Kinsella's first.
Read
July 11, 2025What a strange fucking book! "Experimental" is probably the best way to describe it. I enjoyed how strange it was, how it played with the form and never seemed to go the way you were expecting it to, lingering on some moments and skipping past others entirely, the way it felt like slowly wiping away the grime to reveal the full picture and still not quite being able to do it. It feels like the kind of book you would discover in a dusty attic, in a good way.
September 3, 2017
great book - really emotionally disturbing. I especially enjoyed the device of songs (karaoke or tape played in a car) interweaving the story and narrative.
August 5, 2015
To begin, I am not at all familiar with the music work of Tim Kinsella, and this book was lent to me by a friend. He only gave me a quick intro of the book and the band, and told me I would have liked it. I plan on checking out the band when i finish this review and will allow it to color my review only after I write about my experience with the book.
I was somewhat intrigued by this book, but found myself scratching my head more often than not. The concept is interesting - reconnecting after a death, a group of friends and relatives converge on the funeral, each of them carrying their own lives along with them that everyone else is mostly ignorant to but influences their decisions...and karaoke.
Perhaps where I am most confused is by the editing and execution of the piece. Listed as literary fiction, I am actually hugely disappointed by the writing and organization. The organization is confounding, arranged in parts, chapters, and then horizontal-line breaks that seem to make the book choppy. If the book was a bit more ‘literary’ with images and vignettes that seem to allow for the short bursts to be silhouetted on their own in the context of the larger book, excellent, but my biggest complaint is that this book fundamentally tells rather than shows. There are some really great sentences throughout, and a few really great paragraphs, but they are spaced between a lot of exposition that is explain-y rather than sensory, and maybe just a ‘modern fiction’ label makes more sense. I found myself bored and constantly wanting to give it a chance rather than enjoying it.
That said, this book had such an interesting and cool concept, it was somewhat disappointing that the actual execution of it didn’t really keep my attention. It seems a lot of reviewers did the same thing I did - put it down for a while and often wonder “why, though?” It seems at times to have a great deal of material that doesn’t need to be there, or executed differently, and in the hands of a great editor or different author there is a chance that this book would have been a real winner if a lot was cut and the whole piece was organized differently.
Frankly, I thought it was just okay and felt bored as I read. This piece just didn’t do it for me in many ways.
------
I just checked out some videos of the music of Kinsella and enjoyed it. As a lyricist and musician, he definitely has some major technical chops. “King Song” and a live version of “Love Life” at SXSW were great. Kinsella is a talented writer and musician, but perhaps recognizing his music as markedly separate than this novel is likely the best way to enjoy his work.
I was somewhat intrigued by this book, but found myself scratching my head more often than not. The concept is interesting - reconnecting after a death, a group of friends and relatives converge on the funeral, each of them carrying their own lives along with them that everyone else is mostly ignorant to but influences their decisions...and karaoke.
Perhaps where I am most confused is by the editing and execution of the piece. Listed as literary fiction, I am actually hugely disappointed by the writing and organization. The organization is confounding, arranged in parts, chapters, and then horizontal-line breaks that seem to make the book choppy. If the book was a bit more ‘literary’ with images and vignettes that seem to allow for the short bursts to be silhouetted on their own in the context of the larger book, excellent, but my biggest complaint is that this book fundamentally tells rather than shows. There are some really great sentences throughout, and a few really great paragraphs, but they are spaced between a lot of exposition that is explain-y rather than sensory, and maybe just a ‘modern fiction’ label makes more sense. I found myself bored and constantly wanting to give it a chance rather than enjoying it.
That said, this book had such an interesting and cool concept, it was somewhat disappointing that the actual execution of it didn’t really keep my attention. It seems a lot of reviewers did the same thing I did - put it down for a while and often wonder “why, though?” It seems at times to have a great deal of material that doesn’t need to be there, or executed differently, and in the hands of a great editor or different author there is a chance that this book would have been a real winner if a lot was cut and the whole piece was organized differently.
Frankly, I thought it was just okay and felt bored as I read. This piece just didn’t do it for me in many ways.
------
I just checked out some videos of the music of Kinsella and enjoyed it. As a lyricist and musician, he definitely has some major technical chops. “King Song” and a live version of “Love Life” at SXSW were great. Kinsella is a talented writer and musician, but perhaps recognizing his music as markedly separate than this novel is likely the best way to enjoy his work.
October 21, 2015
This is an exceptionally tough book to rate because when I first laid eyes on it, I wanted to love it right away. I've been a Kinsella fan for the better part of fifteen years and as a freshman in high school, I actually wished for him to write a book. As I recall, my English teacher had a book of poetry by a guy goes by the name Kinsella, and I would stare at it and think, "How cool would it be if it was that dude from Cap'n Jazz and Joan of Arc and Owls?" So it was only natural that when I stumbled across this at the half price books in town (still sporting an eight dollar entry fee) I was elated. I, of course, then checked Goodreads for reviews of the novel because as a life long follower of Kinsella's musical and artistic career, I certainly know how shamelessly self-indulgent his art can be.
Which leads us to the review proper.
This is a shamelessly self-indulgent book. I don't know if an editor ever saw it. The story-telling crawls for the first half of the book, few of the characters ever develop enough to be likable--and not because of the things they do, but because they're so goddamn boring, the likable characters are awful people, the prose is choppy, the dialogue is wooden...I could go on.
And yet, as some other members will say, Kinsella can really spin a phrase. There are some really nice passages of writing here. There is an unquestionably dreamy and cool quality to the world the characters inhabit. Hell, there are even some moments where the story-telling made me want to keep reading!
SO?!
This is ultimately a three and one half star book. The moments that shine show that Tim really does have the chops to push out a book--an oddly optimistic book, given the tone. If you happen to be a Kinsella fan, you might go out and find yourself a copy of The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self-Defense. If not, well, maybe find another book.
Which leads us to the review proper.
This is a shamelessly self-indulgent book. I don't know if an editor ever saw it. The story-telling crawls for the first half of the book, few of the characters ever develop enough to be likable--and not because of the things they do, but because they're so goddamn boring, the likable characters are awful people, the prose is choppy, the dialogue is wooden...I could go on.
And yet, as some other members will say, Kinsella can really spin a phrase. There are some really nice passages of writing here. There is an unquestionably dreamy and cool quality to the world the characters inhabit. Hell, there are even some moments where the story-telling made me want to keep reading!
SO?!
This is ultimately a three and one half star book. The moments that shine show that Tim really does have the chops to push out a book--an oddly optimistic book, given the tone. If you happen to be a Kinsella fan, you might go out and find yourself a copy of The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self-Defense. If not, well, maybe find another book.
November 29, 2013
First of all, I probably wouldn't have got to reading this if I had not already been a fan of Tim Kinsella's music. The work he's done particularly with the band Joan of Arc can be challenging to listen to; likewise, this is not an easy read. I can't pretend that I enjoyed the book or that I didn't spend the time it took to read it wishing I was reading something else.
I can handle books that aren't "fluffy", but the introduction of a disturbing storyline put me off and I'm not convinced it contributed anything to the plot overall. In fact, not one storyline saved the book and I couldn't empathise with any of the characters.
The reason I give this 2 stars instead of 1 is because I appreciate that it's probably a lot denser than I'm really used to and there's a possibility I might like it if I read it in, say, 10 years' time. The way that Kinsella has authored a certain atmosphere is very skillful, and there are some really brilliantly written paragraphs. But overall, it was a slog.
I can handle books that aren't "fluffy", but the introduction of a disturbing storyline put me off and I'm not convinced it contributed anything to the plot overall. In fact, not one storyline saved the book and I couldn't empathise with any of the characters.
The reason I give this 2 stars instead of 1 is because I appreciate that it's probably a lot denser than I'm really used to and there's a possibility I might like it if I read it in, say, 10 years' time. The way that Kinsella has authored a certain atmosphere is very skillful, and there are some really brilliantly written paragraphs. But overall, it was a slog.
May 7, 2011
When you feel life is a cliché, do you fight back? Tim Kinsella's strange, dream-like debut novel is filled with painfully aware characters, families, and outcasts caught in inherited rhythms of cruelty and ambivalence. Dark secrets lurk when three siblings gather for a funeral: a thoughtful dancer back at her bar, a bitter father working in a toothpaste factory, and a fist-fight addict struggling to keep his nose clean. Across town, a boy is locked up in a delusional man's home. Meanwhile, a teenage runaway looks for a new life in The Legendary Shhh, a strip club recently passed down to an unprepared heir. There, in the back room, is the only escape from these derailed lives: a karaoke machine. The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self-Defense reveals the honesty that can only be heard while singing someone else's song.
June 27, 2012
Tim Kinsella is known for singing in cult Chicago bands such as Cap'n Jazz, Joan of Arc, Owls and Make Believe. How cool it was to come across his debut novel, which I had no prior knowledge of, during a recent visit to Chicago. The characters and events of The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self-Defense are those of dreams (or perhaps more appropriately, nightmares). It is a novel about being stuck in grime and finding respite from it even in small things. While Kinsella's characters are difficult and even unlikeable (and not necessarily in an appealing way), his prose is dense, fluid and poetic and his imagery is the star of this complex, disjointed storyline.
March 13, 2012
I'm a fan of Kinsella's many bands, and I particularly love the witty word play of his lyrics. His prose is just as smart/ peculiar. I just didn't connect with this story. As a new mother, I was disturbed by the late (and slightly sympathetic) introduction of a man who has kidnapped and raped a 6 year old boy, then holds him captive for 9 years.
Others have described this book as funny, but I found it sad. It's probably funny in the way I found Gummo funny in 12th grade, when I didn't think it was possible for people to be that pathetic.
Others have described this book as funny, but I found it sad. It's probably funny in the way I found Gummo funny in 12th grade, when I didn't think it was possible for people to be that pathetic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 2, 2013
unbelievably tragic and depressing. no thing approaching 'nice' or 'good' happens to any of the characters. i tried to put this novel down no less than three times but was apparently a glutton for punishment. maybe i couldn't believe that was this literally god forsaken town could spawn so many unlikable and unredeemable characters. maybe it it made feel feel better about my own vain 'why me'ness. regardless, the skill of the writer kept drawing me into this pit of blackness.
March 7, 2016
I've only grown more fond of this since I finished it. I do agree with other reviews that it is difficult to get into. It jumps from character to character, location to location, time to time to time to time, erratically without solidifying anything. However, after the scene with the russians, I was hooked. I loved all the characters, and by the end of it, I wanted another 200+ pages. and as another reviewer wrote, sometimes it is just shit your pants brilliant.
January 20, 2017
I read "All Over and Over" before this and wasn't really prepared."AO&O" was a meandering tour diary. But "Karaoke..." has some phenomenal prose, honestly I really enjoyed how it was written. I didn't mind the jumbled story lines, though it was hard to recall who was who for a bit but then it really became clear. It has this sheen of grime to it, late night stale beer spilled on ancient carpets or something that I gravitated towards. It has this texture in the text that is compelling.
Want to read
March 19, 2013I bought this book today at the Printer's Row Lit Festival, mainly because Featherproof Books is one of my favorite independent presses in Chicago, and the hipster guy working their table was too attractive to ruin my chances with him by implying that I didn't trust his literary recommendations. I am second guessing this purchase.
On the plus side, it's a terribly attractive book.
On the plus side, it's a terribly attractive book.
December 8, 2011
An interesting read, though not a strictly successful one. Kinsella was previously famous for other art he did in different media, and it seems like he got this book published on the strength of that art rather than on its own merits.
Want to read
October 27, 2011is this going to be the worst thing ever? Or the best? Love the cover.
December 14, 2011
Read my full review on Curbside Splendor Press' blog: http://www.curbsidesplendor.com/curbs...
January 7, 2013
Slow building but worth some effort simply for Kinsella's mastery of language, very dense and lyrical.
February 5, 2013
I give 5 stars for prose, and 3 stars for seeming to leave it unfinished.
January 12, 2014
Probably more like 2 1/2 stars. I enjoyed this, but when it was all over I was very dissatisfied with how the two parallel stories converged.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews