A Song Without a Melody

by Ace Boggess

Collin Hearst is a timid young reporter covering the Pittsburgh music scene during the early 1990's. Largely inept at dealing with other people, he hides behind personas he refers to as his “routines.” December Leigh, lead singer of the alternative-rock band Cancer Moon, also has identity issues, hiding behind more literal masks. When they get together, what follows is a whirlwind tour of sex, drugs, and self-discovery, all set against a backdrop of colorful ’90s subculture and a soundtrack that Collin will hear forever in his mind.

Genres: Fiction

246 pages, Paperback

First published December 6, 2016

About the author

Ace Boggess' writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, Atlanta Review, RATTLE, River Styx, Southern Humanities Review, J Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, and many other journals. He won the Robert Bausch Fiction Award and a fellowship from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts. He also spent five years in a West Virginia prison. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.

Reviews

[Nathaniel Horowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wise man once wrote, “Autobiography is made like sausage, only the butcher and the donor animal are the same person.” The umami of verisimilitude flavors the pages of this book about an edgy young newspaper journalist who does not so much struggle with addiction as undergo a long, sweaty fuck with it. The post-coital depression is a bitch, but satisfying from a literary point of view, underscoring the fact that the narrator’s writer routine trumps his junkie routine. Also to be found between these covers: deft, exuberant writing evoking sex, music, philosophy, joy, sorrow, love, loss, and the hip, seamy side of Pittsburgh in the 1990s. Highly recommended.

[Greg Leatherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Song Without a Melody is a romantic comedy from the nineties underground. Young reporter Colin Hearst reviews the local music scene for a Pittsburgh newspaper and he's the wannabe wise-guy who knows how to get across in every bar he hits. For example, Colin scores free drinks by volunteering to play guinea pig for creative bartenders, and Ace Boggess is such a good writer, you can taste the concoctions. The newsroom banter is snappy, and the relationship at the center of this book unfolds in a convincing manner, even if it does start off in a haze of pot smoke. Colin is single and he really doesn't want to be, but most of the women he meets are just not that inspiring, until . . . Yeah, I should mention, this is a book for mature teens and adults. It is full of backstage realism and erotic longing, and well, at first, you may think it's going to be a typical "band makes it big" tale of an alluring star, but it's not. It's really about the trouble two people can have trying to find each other when they live in that world. There's even an epic kinky sex scene that ends in a closet, which works in the same decadent way writers like Tom Robbins do. Sure, it's indulgent, but it's also fun, and isn't that why you keep reading these snarky, underground, comedies? While A Song Without a Melody never loses its sense of wonder at just how bizarre the world can be along its darker edges, the flawed narration of the soft-boiled anti-hero Collin Hearst grounds this story in reality. His questioning judgement of everything is both his best and worst trait, and it rings true, even when we see right through it. For example, when Hearst deals with the underworld of drugs, whether talking with a dealer, watching his friends lose their bearings, or having to face a drug test, he keeps his cool, but he's not above it all, and that makes him a believable character. Another interesting aspect is how the decade of the 90s permeates the plot. Song Without a Melody is one of the most subtle descriptions of vintage I've come across, because the author does not rely on the usual "memorable headlines of the time" or even waxing poetic about the time and place. Boggess could have done this (after all, the narrator works in a news room), but Ace is too good of a writer for that. Some of the dated tech, like the modem he uses to transmit stories, feel like insider info, but are presented so humorously that they entertain. I was reminded of Twain in those places. The prose is (as expected from an accomplished poet like Ace Boggess) very tight. Every detail has a purpose, and the characters are memorable. The plot takes a number of interesting detours, so I recommend readers give it a hundred pages to get really rolling. The sections about Billy Ray are highly original and should not be missed. The bottom line: I have picked up a lot of books about the underground over the years, hoping they would be more like this one. It was funny, unpretentious, believable, and well written. It also lacked all the self-pity and Christian guilt you usually find in these confessionals - replacing them with humor. I look forward to picking up the next book by this novelist. I give it four stars. It's not Moby Dick, but it's a very satisfying contemporary novel.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Song Without A Melody is the well-written ironic debut novel from Ace Boggess, and it unravels like a neo-noir furtive sprint through the stage door of pure insanity and back again, breathless with pounding heart. First-class read.

[Marne Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover of this book proclaims it to be "a novel of the '90s," but don't expect to find O.J. Simpson, Beavis and Butthead, Hootie and the Blowfish, or even flannel shirts here. More than a simple period piece that tells you what you already think you know, this is a novel of the real '90s as they were lived by real people. True, the book is full of sex and drugs and rock 'n roll, but all that stuff is on the surface. There are a lot of real emotions underneath, and that emotional through line is what kept me riveted right up until the end. Then again, this book was especially easy to keep reading because the prose is clear as a bell. Boggess is a journalist, which means he can describe things clearly and accurately without getting bogged down, but he's also a poet, so there are some wonderful lyrical passages sprinkled throughout. I don't know what else to say except that it was a joy to read, and I wished that there was more, always the sign of a good book.