Hidden Wheel

by Michael T. Fournier

When an art scene takes root in a pop-up colony called Freedom Springs, micro-visionary Ben Wilfork promotes the giant, autobiographical 600 square foot canvases of former chess prodigy and high end dominatrix Rhonda Barrett using his Hidden Wheel as a bridge to the future before pre-Datastrophe history completes itself. It's a book about the scams of the modern age--artistic self-promotion, corporate infiltration of hipsterdom--and it's hilarious. At the same time this is a philosophical literary work that dissects hipsterdom to get at the core of what it's all about. A must-read for art fans, punk fans, anyone who wants to know how the truly original ideas can get subsumed by the corporate machine--and how to save them. Told in an intriguing intersecting point of view style this is a powerful short novel by an emerging talent.

Genres: Fiction

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Michael T. Fournier is the author of Double Nickels on the Dime (Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2007), Hidden Wheel (Three Rooms Press, 2011) Swing State (Three Rooms Press, 2014) and The Impasse (St. Rooster Books 2024). He graduated from University of Maine's MA program, where he won the Steven Grady Award for fiction. His prose and music criticism has been widely published, and he's toured the United States extensively -- twice through successful crowdfunded prerelease campaigns.

Mike is a regular contributor ro Razorcake and is co-editor of Zisk, the baseball fanzine for people who hate baseball fanzines He's the drummer and main songwriter for Dead Trend, and plays bass in Plaza, Cape Cod's #1 band.

A lifelong Red Sox fan, he lives in Massachusetts with his wife Rebecca and their cat.

Reviews

[Dana King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hidden Wheel finds a great balance between being fun and giving you something to think about. I'm not an artist but I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in the thoughts of these artist characters.

Reading this novel was a unique ride with characters that made me feel young again. One of them spoke only in long and ranty run-on sentences but I'll forgive the author for it this time because the novel as a whole was such a quick, fun read. Did I mention that it's not only fun but also funny? I'm picky about the fiction I read and will only put up with less-than-wonderful writing from non-fiction. Hidden Wheel did not let me down. Now I'm left wondering what the cover image means and whether there is a whole genre of "Drummers' Lit?"

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect after reading the synopsis, but I was not surprised to find a funny, well-written novel with a cast of real characters that each had their own unique voice. At first I was not a fan of the format as it was not always easy to figure out which character was narrating each passage, but after I got used to it I enjoyed it, even the ramblings of Max.