The Road to Fluffer

by Dan Schell

Darrell Steiner is a middle-aged music journalist caught between his magazine's corporate takeover and a disintegrating marriage. Forced to prove his relevance in an ever-changing music industry, he is assigned to cover a small-time heavy metal band, Numb Skull, for an ill-fated tour through the Midwest. Numb Skull's music is loud, their lyrics pedestrian, and their dreams of the wild rock and roll life drive every decision. Darrell, however, begins to see the assignment as the death knell of his career, helpless on the road while his wife shacks up with his brother.

The makers of Fluffer, the adult energy drink, have gotten into the music business, culminating in the annual Fluffer Music Festival in Chicago. Numb Skull has earned a slot to play at the festival but the band struggles to keep the tour from derailing after a series of mishaps, while Darrell wrestles with his personal and professional lives, finding himself both burdened and sheltered by the road.

156 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2012

About the author

Dan Schell is the author of the rock fiction comedy novel The Road to Fluffer (2012) and Collected Poems (2016). He has also published poetry and book reviews in many literary journals over 30 years.

Dan has also been involved with music and the sound arts. In 1999, he released the experimental electronic CD “Attention-Deficit Democracy” using all sampled material and in 2000, he made national news with a contribution to the Droplift Project (https://droplift.com/), a coordinated effort of sound collage artists who “reverse shoplifted” a compilation CD featuring unauthorized samples into record stores around the world. Dan also played drums in the sludge metal band Candy and briefly played guitar for Tension Head, where he got the idea to turn to writing with the satirical novel, The Road to Fluffer.

Dan currently lives in Metro Detroit and is in the final stages of his next novel, a satirical look at a zombie apocalypse.

Reviews

[Cindy Holdmann]

This was a pretty good book about a man who writes for a rock magazine who tours with a local band. The writing was pretty good and there was good character formation. However, I would have liked to have seen the story go a bit further. Parts of it seemed repetitious but that's what touring is. There could have been more information about each member of the band but I like how the author brought the writers personal life into it. All in all, not a bad book

[Dan Schell]

I read this about 6 or 7 times after I wrote it but I'm not going to assign it a rating. :)

[Pamela Harju]

This one grew on me

This book started slowly, and I wondered where it was going. At some point, I started to care for the characters. I don't know the US music business at all although I'm well familiar with the UK scene, so this was fascinating from that point of view. A book about my kind of people for my kind of people.

[Dawn]

the references to my hometown and MI were pretty cool. made me miss the early/mid 90's and going to hall shows as a teenager.

[Misty]

A really fun, fast read!