Signal to Noise

by Jonathan Lyons

Postmodernism meets music mash-up, remixing and collage in this late-'80s coming-of-age story, an alt-underground music extravaganza that repeatedly breaks the traditional form of the novel. As Connor submerges into the underground music scene, he is enthralled by an industrial/hardcore music legend who goes by the handle “The Siren.” Their otherworldly comingling alters them, a physical transmogrification that takes hold whenever they are intimate. Music is woven into the text, as lyrics interplay with the storyline in this hybrid of fabulism, alternative and industrial music, and fiction, a tour of the underground music scene of the mid- to late '80s in Iowa City and beyond. The publisher, The Foundry: A Literary Collective, is a small coop press using CreateSpace for fulfillment and delivery of this, its first title. Signal to Noise is a nominee for the Pushcart Press Editors Choice Book Award.

268 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 2011

About the author

Jonathan Lyons spent twenty years as a foreign correspondent and editor for Reuters, much of it in the Islamic world. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Monash University and lives in Portland, Oregon. His publications include The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization and (with Geneive Abdo) Answering Only to God: Faith and Freedom in Twenty-First-Century Iran.

Reviews

[Jonathan Lyons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Postmodernism meets music mash-up, remixing and collage in this late-'80s coming-of-age story, an alt-underground music extravaganza that repeatedly breaks the traditional form of the novel. As Connor submerges into the underground music scene, he is enthralled by an industrial/hardcore music legend who goes by the handle “The Siren.” Their otherworldly comingling alters them, a physical transmogrification that takes hold whenever they are intimate. Music is woven into the text, as lyrics interplay with the storyline in this hybrid of fabulism, alternative and industrial music, and fiction, a tour of the underground music scene of the mid- to late '80s in Iowa City and beyond. The publisher, The Foundry: A Literary Collective, is a small coop press using CreateSpace for fulfillment and delivery of this, its first title. Signal to Noise is a nominee for the Pushcart Press Editors Choice Book Award.