The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters

by M.J. Beaufrand

In Portland in 1983, girls are disappearing. Noah, a teen punk with a dark past, becomes obsessed with finding out where they've gone—and he's convinced their disappearance has something to do with the creepy German owners of a local brewery, the PfefferBrau Haus. Noah worries about the missing girls as a way of avoiding the fact that something's seriously wrong with his best friend, Evan. Could it be the same dark force that's pulling them all down?

When the PfefferBrau Haus opens its doors for a battle of the bands, Noah pulls his band, the Gallivanters, back together in order to get to the bottom of the mystery. But there's a new addition to the band: an enigmatic David Bowie look-alike named Ziggy. And secrets other than where the bodies are buried will be revealed. From Edgar-nominated author M. J. Beaufrand, this is a story that gets to the heart of grief and loss while also being hilarious, fast paced, and heartbreaking.

Genres: Young Adult, Music, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Teen

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 12, 2015

About the author

M.J. Beaufrand is the author of The River, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, and Primavera. She has an MFA in creative writing from Bennington College. She lives in Seattle with her husband, two kids, and strange dogs.

Reviews

[Maja (The Nocturnal Library) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a child of the 80’s, I get really nostalgic whenever I’m reminded of anything from those years, be it the music, the fashion, or David Bowie’s weird personas. But with or without nostalgia, with or without understanding of the period, The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters is a truly magical book. Heartbreaking, overwhelming, deeply metaphorical and symbolic, painful, strange and so very honest, this sucker punch of a novel will stay with you for a very long time.

I’ve seen this book labeled as paranormal. It is not. I’ve seen it described as confusing and unexciting. It is not. It is, however, filled with symbolism, allegory and metaphors. This novel isn’t your average, everyday read. It’s something truly special, and as such, it will easily find the hearts of its true audience.

Beaufrand allows Noah to tell us his own story, but Noah’s mind is full of mysteries and monsters, missing girls and frightening fogs. He is more than happy to turn the spotlight on his best friend Evan, a modest, kind boy, a sidekick by nature if ever there was one. Noah and Evan have depended upon each other since they were just boys, and together they survived disasters, abuse, suicidal parents and hospitals. They made it thanks to each other and their music.

With tragedy behind him and tragedy on the horizon, Noah’s past and present painfully collide, and it’s far more than he can handle. In a desperate attempt to put his world to rights, he decides to re-form the Gallivanters, his failed punk band. The goal is to create a demo and enter a contest to play at a famous brewery, which happens to be the place where more than twenty girls disappeared.

Noah wants to be a musician and a knight, but even more, he wants Evan to be both. For a kid who is supposedly a self-centered troublemaker, he does very little for himself. Beaufrand delved deep into Noah psyche by subtly showing us consequences of constant horrible abuse, by giving us glimpses of a masochistic personality, and miraculously shaping it all into a character we can’t help but love. I am in awe.*

Be patient with this book. Be kind to it when it seems confusing and strange. Give it time, be tolerant, and the book will give back to you tenfold. This is quite easily my favorite book this year, with a quiet sort of beauty that might, just might, go tragically unnoticed. Some of the best things are, though, and I’ll always feel extremely lucky to have stumbled upon this gem.

*Just writing this review, thinking intensely about the beauty of this book, made me cry like a baby.

[Eilonwy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3-1/2 stars, and I can't decide whether to round up or down. Darn you, GR, for not letting me put in that half!

Noah is not in a good place, physically or in his being. In Portland, Oregon in 1984, teenage girls are disappearing ... but so is Noah's best friend, Evan, who is suffering from terrible migraines and seems to be fading away a little more every day. Noah's band, consisting of him, Evan, and their sort-of friends Sonia and Jaime, has broken up. But one night, a mysterious character who calls himself Ziggy appears to Noah, tells him there's a darkness ("the Marr") infecting the city, and says Noah needs to try to fix it through his music. As an added incentive, the local brewery is sponsoring a battle of the bands with some pretty good prizes. Despite their past differences and current friction, Noah is inspired to reunite the Gallivanters and see what they can do.

This is a hard book to categorize. It wasn't at all what I expected. Rather than a plot-driven story, this was a dark, tense psychological exploration of delusion and denial, and the lengths a damaged mind can go to to protect itself from pain.

Noah has suffered through terrible abuse by his father, and while he functions all right, going to school and hanging out with his friends, he's not a person who can cope very well. The extent of that inability becomes creepily clearer as the story goes on. He hides behind his hair (a green Mohawk; nice to see that the cover actually matches his description). He hurts himself instead of dealing with his mental pain. He's fascinated by the missing girls and desperately wants to identify and stop the serial killer who's causing pain for so many other people. He forgives Sonia for something I would never forgive anyone for doing to me. And he tries to fight the Marr (named for Johnny Marr, or what? It's never addressed).

I get the impression that people either love this book or hate it, looking at the other reviews here. I personally found it a very quick, gripping read. But it's also a hard read, emotionally, as Noah's past is revealed, and as he and the reader together finally realize and accept what's happening in the present. I loved Noah's voice, despite the raw confusion he's expressing and his avoidance of just about everything. He rings true to me as a trauma victim. Reading this so close to All the Rage, I found him a sort of male counterpart to that story.

The biggest weakness of this book, for me, is that it's set in 1984, which makes it practically historical fiction by now :-), and I didn't really see any reason why it needed to be happening then. While it's not obnoxious about period references (unlike *cough* Eleanor and Park *cough*), it still points out things nobody would care about if they weren't trying to establish an era (at one point Evan leans against a Datsun, for instance, when he could have just leaned against a car). And while the story avoids much mention of 80's bands, there are a ton of David Bowie references, probably many more than I managed to notice. None of this takes away from the story in any way, but it's slightly distracting. It doesn't help that the story is framed as being looked back on from a later date, which is occasionally confusing (and that later date turns out to be a lot less later than I anticipated).

The climax didn't really work for me, either, as I just can't see the night going down quite the way it did. But I admired the rest of the book enough to forgive my inability to suspend disbelief here.

I'd recommend this to anyone who likes unusual, "meaty" contemporary YA novels, like those by A. S. King. And do have a hanky close by when you get near the end.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting something much different than I ended up with in The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters by M.J. Beaufrand. It was still interesting to read a book set in 1983 featuring a punk band - that was a first for me. I'm not all that familiar with the music genre to begin with, but either way it seemed almost too modern.

[IfCatsCouldRead · Rating 3 out of 5]

**See below for trigger warnings.
I had no expectations going into this book. Picked it up from Dollar Tree based solely on the cover. It is a decent enough story. Has vibes of Stranger Things, SLC Punk, Empire Records, A Monster Calls... I figured out what was going on pretty early in the story but it didn't really take away from anything.

Trigger Warnings: child/domestic abuse, alcoholism

[Bet · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were parts that had some really good writing, but mostly, this book sounded too angsty and a little off-putting. The Ziggy twist was already so obvious; spoon-feeding it in the end seemed unnecessary. Failed to live up to the interesting synopsis on the inside flap cover, but overall, still a good read.

[Lucija · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. The characters were just so real, and this was just such an awesome book. If you haven't read it, I highly reccomend it! :)

[Marisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book struck me as all around average. There were a few reveals and certainly some very sad moments, but I never felt fully invested in the characters. Noah is interesting and his relationship with Ziggy created an odd dynamic, but I felt like I knew what was coming from early in the story. One the one hand I felt for Noah and everything he went through, but I also was frustrated to his determined blindness to everything going on around him.

My biggest observation is that there are a lot of things that didn’t feel realistic to me. Would Evan really have delayed for that long? And why was he delaying before they even were in the rock competition? I still really enjoyed this book, but I don’t think it’s going to be one that stick with me in the longer term.

Warning: Contains violence.

Who should read it? Fans of coming of age stories, punk culture and fans of 80’s music.

See all my reviews www.ReadingToDistraction.com or @Read2Distract

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutley loved this book! It was such a fun experience for me to read, even though there was some language. I would recommend this book for teens and young adults, as I think anybody in that age group would like it as much as I did.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's 1983 in Portland, Oregon, and Noah knows there is something terribly wrong with his best friend, Evan, but he's not quite sure what it is. The one thing he knows is that he'd be lost without Evan since the two have shared so much, including Evan being there throughout his abusive childhood and his father's suicide. When a mysterious figure who reminds him of David Bowie appears on the scene and bids him to use his music to combat the evils lurking in the city, Noah decides to resurrect The Gallivanters, the band he started earlier. At first reluctantly, the band comes back together, bringing with it relationship drama. Noah's goal is to play at a concert at the PfefferBrau Haus, but he also is determined to figure out where the girls who've been disappearing from the city's streets have gone to. While I liked a lot about the book, especially its energy, its exploration of friendship, and its examination of the bonds formed through music, the punk quality of the characters and their culture seemed rather tame, and the creepy nature of the missing girls, one of whom ended up being part of the brew being concocted at the BrauHaus, seemed unnecessarily sinister and detracted from my enjoyment of the book. The identity of the murderer was not a surprise to me, and Noah's denial about the serious state of his friend's health seemed odd. The author captures the flavor of the city and its outlying areas, but the strange mysticism and characters that wandered through the book prevented me from enjoying it more than I thought I would. While the opening scene works with the closing scenes, it set up my expectations for the book in a way that wasn't quite realized.

[Payton Ransdell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book disturbed me. The odd supernatural symbolism in this book was very confusing to me. Noah is a singer and band leader to the Gallivanters. Around his town girls are disappearing. His bestfriend is having some serious issues that Noah decides to avoid by worrying about the girls. Noah throughout this book was whiny and he got to be annoying, though these characteristics fit his character. The entire punk music band part of the book I was obsessed with. Each of the band members was intriguing… I wish we got to see more of them. I felt the book was very centered on the creepy supernatural elements in the book. The plotline kept me interested as I wanted to reach the end and understand everything. Noah’s character growth through this book did surprise me which I really enjoyed. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys creepy punk supernatural mystery all rolled into one novel.

[Brenda · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book description had me hooked. Once I started it, it was too slow for my usual pace. I felt a connection with Ev and his migraines until later on. I was pretty much confused throughout the entire book and it was sort of hard to stay focused. I am just going to blame it on the fact that I get bored easily and that it was slow. I didn't really like the way the male characters in the book talked about women, I feel like some of them sexualize them a bit too much in the beginning and towards the end its sort of protective but not so much in a good way. There was a bit of cursing that was honestly not all that necessary. I don't have all that much to say, I just found it quite boring and hard to get into.

[Cathie Chenoweth · Rating 2 out of 5]

A band of punks in 1983 Portland, Oregon come together to try and have their 15 minutes of fame while trying to save girls from disappearing. The story sounded interesting to me and because I'm into punk and a child of the 80's I thought this was going to be really good. Yeah I was wrong the story was decent, but not what I expected. I felt bad for Noah who is known as a troubled teen who is damaged and felt even worse for his friend Ev who suffers from extreme migraines, but there wasn't enough to really hook me into this story. The ending was just so-so which sucks because I really wanted to like this story.

[Erin Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel a little scattered about this book. Maybe because the book is scattered. Parts I loved, parts were silly. Parts were endearing, parts were annoying. Parts were flimsy, parts weren't. I read it in a day and stayed up past my bedtime to finish it, so I was interested in it enough to discover how it all unfolded. Plus, there's a music competition and a music store ... and you know, I like music.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not what it seems (and that's also true for all of our characters). Girls disappearing, punk bands, David Bowie look- alike named Ziggy, cancer, Portland, one boy who is haunted by his past. There is so much going on in this book, its hard to grasp if you are reading realistic- fiction or fantasy, in the end this novel is about a teen and his coping with some really heavy life situations. A novel for music fans, outsiders and readers.

[Kirsty-Marie Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was surprisingly unexpected. Having that 'I liked it, but I don't know why I liked it.'

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF
I had high hopes for this book, I was pretty excited to see a book with punk characters didn't involve them ruining their lives with drugs and bad decisions and falling in love with the biggest assholes and everything else that is in every other book I know involving punk characters, and the premise itself seemed rather interesting to boot.
I was actually quite engaged in the story for awhile, but that slowly started to fade away and soon I just wanted to find out how it ended more than I wanted to continue through the story.
My biggest issue is the characters, and maybe just how Noah as narrator explains them. I could never get a handle on Crock or Jaime, why did they do the things they did, what are their motivations, their actions didn't always seem to align with the characterization given, which would have been fine if Noah mentioned it, but he didn't. Now, I've never dated anyone nor have I had any interest in doing so, so obviously I really can't fully know what it's like, but Sonia's reaction to Noah making out with a girl after getting drunk, just seemed too overkill for me to sympathize; and when she physically assaulted him for calling her friend a bitch and was smirking while she did it destroyed any chance for me to like her, and her "genuine" apology later more felt like an attempt to redeem her.
Noah himself wasn't a bad character, my biggest issue was when he lost control. I don't know if there's more but the two I got to were pushing his sister and calling Jaime a bitch. While I feel those actions could be somewhat justifiable (especially the latter) they seemed to come out of nowhere and seemed rather out of character for Noah. The problem with this is Noah's tendency to gloss over details, so I couldn't connect with why he was driven over the edge. This creates further problems with how the story just skips past the confrontations he would have had with those characters, so we never see him apologize. He agonizes over it for a little bit but then it moves on past the incident, making the whole ordeal feel force, just another stress Noah has to overcome. Noah saying he deserved getting his face mangled because he called Jaime a bitch, it came off as a "pity this poor kid" moment rather than something Noah would actually say or believe.
The main plot, being naturally wrapped up in mystery as it is(eve though I could predict where everything was going very quickly, but I digress), and taking sort of a back seat to Noah dealing with his personal issues, felt more like a b-plot and the book ended up feeling shallow and hollow for it.

[bookserpent · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story has a great heart, but I love the idea of it much more than I love the actual book itself. There were a bunch of characters—IMO too many—and the book was just too brief and too focused on other things to flesh a lot of them out. I never really got what Jaime was all about, and Sonia seemed like she should’ve had more “screentime” but ended up being pretty unimportant in the end. Also, the fact that she physically assaults Noah for something comparatively minor and then never really atones for it bugged me, especially considering Noah’s previous experiences with his father. Sonia was a nasty inexcusable asshole, and the narrative not treating her as one almost seemed to undercut Noah’s growth from his abuse.

Very minor complaint: that part about Ziggy near the end was treated like it was supposed to be some kind of last-minute plot twist, but it was obvious to me for a long time, and I’m not sure if that moment deserved the weight that it got.

It’s rough when you don’t have a whole lot of major gripes with something and yet it’s still missing that undefinable “spark” that would elevate it to greatness, but that was my experience with this story. Guardian Angel David Bowie will definitely be an image that sticks with me forever, though.

[Jessica Texter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a weird one. The beginning of the book just kind of throws you in without explaining things, and expects it to make sense. I thought I was going to hate it. Eventually though, the book pulls you in as it starts to reveal things. I might have given up if it wasn’t such a fast read (only took a few hours.) The story pushed a few metaphors a bit too far into the bizarre, but it made sense for the context. The last few chapters made it worthwhile for the most part.

[Jinx · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first discovered this book during a 'blind date with a book' event at my local library. It's not something I ever would have expected myself falling in love with, but it got me hook line and sinker. The main character has a lot going on in his life, and even during his darkest moments you end up feeling sympathy for him. Even without growing up in the 80's, I felt like I was there the entire time reading this book. 10/10, pick it up if you get a chance.

[Kera McGee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great It had a slow start to get to the climax but once you get there you finally find that the moral and the point to the story is much greater and completely different than you expect. Living in portland myself its cool to see all the references to my own city. Very good book and if i knew how good the ending was i never would have taken so long to finish it!

[OnceUponABlonde · Rating 1 out of 5]

6% DNF'ED.


Waayy to much strong language. I hoped it would stop, but it didn't.
It used a very strong curse word in the 4th page, I hope that would be the only time, I was wrong.

As*es
Sh**
Fu** off
Fu**
A**
Lord's name in vain 1x
G*dda**
Mentions of a girl being the first to develop, having a "rack"
Kind of an inappropriate refrance to her breasts.

[Emily Bowerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. I've re-read it a least 5 times! This book takes place in Portland Oregon (at least I think it does according to places the author mentions in the book) and the iconic style & times of the 80's is amazing! It's a great book! I just love this book because I can relate to the characters & understand the mental health issues.

[Myke Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun story, not holding back on the dirty, slimy aspects of any punk rock scene or kid's life. However, there were many obvious twists and points where a great twist could have come into play but didn't Not a total let down, but sadly predictable in more parts than there should have been.

[Alice Whiskey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Is Now One Of My All Time Favorite Books....It Made Me Cry....You Should Read It....Especially If You Love David Bowie....

[Amam · Rating 5 out of 5]

gud

[Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! This was right up my ally I couldn't have asked for more.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Not sure why I found it so riveting, but I sure did. Weird plot with lovable characters.

[Tara Callahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a unique read. It is a 80’s punk rock scene meets murder mystery meets young adult novel. The characters and plot lines keep the reader guessing what is going on throughout the novel.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

needed a coming of age book for the library book bingo, and this one is pretty interesting humanly and also in the scary ranges!

[J. Harding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read. I came for punk rock but found a touching book that I liked a lot.