Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction

by David Hajdu

This never-before-told story of the life and work of a (fictitious) musical phenomenon is "a revealing?and at times hilarious?satire of the music business, fame, and the cult of personality" (Clea Simon, Boston Globe ). Adrianne Geffel was a genius. Praised as the “Geyser of Grand Street” and the “Queen of Bleak Chic,” she was a one-of-a-kind artist, a pianist and composer with a rare neurological condition that enabled her to make music that was nothing less than pure, unmediated emotional expression. She and her sensibility are now fully integrated into the cultural lexicon; her music has been portrayed, represented, and appropriated endlessly in popular culture. But what do we really know about her ? Despite her renown, Adrianne Geffel vanished from public life, and her whereabouts remain a mystery to this day. David Hajdu cuts through the noise to tell, for the first time, the full story of Geffel’s life and work, piecing it together through the memories of those who knew her, inspired her, and exploited her―her parents, teachers, best friend, manager, critics, and lovers. Adrianne Geffel made music so strange, so compelling, so utterly unique that it is simply not to be believed. Hajdu has us believing every note of it in this slyly entertaining work of fiction. A brilliantly funny satire, with characters that leap off the page, Adrianne Geffel is a vividly twisted evocation of the New York City avant-garde of the 1970s and ’80s, and a strangely moving portrait of a world both utterly familiar and like none we’ve ever encountered.

Genres: Fiction, Historical, Music, Romance, Mental Health, Ebooks

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2020

About the author

DAVID HAJDU is the author of Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn and Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina. He is a critic for The New Republic and a professor in the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He lives in New York City."

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Review written July 2020.) An oral history of a fictional musician – so addictive I read it in a single night. It's something like Daisy Jones & The Six meets The Life and Death of Sophie Stark, but smarter and wittier than either. Also has a villain so palpably punchable, it's a miracle my Kindle is still intact.

In the world of the book, Geffel was a hugely influential experimental pianist who rose to prominence in the late 1970s. Her impact was such that 'geffel' has become a verb (meaning 'to release pure emotion in a work of creative expression'). Now, however, she is absent, having been missing for decades, and we hear her story via family, friends, lovers, teachers, management and doctors. Adrianne's unique talent, we learn, is attributable to a form of synesthesia: she hears constant music in her mind, and it changes according to her mood. She's also the subject of hideous exploitation by those who see her gift as a way to make money.

The author's background as a music critic undoubtedly contributes to the effectiveness of Adrianne Geffel as a satire. There are some very entertaining asides and cameos (like when Adrianne and Barb inadvertently invent the Walkman, or when Philip Glass comes to fix their toilet). It's equally satisfying as good old enjoyable fiction. I don't know what it is about stories told this way that's so engrossing, but I just couldn't put it down.

I received an advance review copy of Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction from the publisher through Edelweiss.

[Alan (on December semi-hiatus) Teder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take a Walk on the Geffel Side
Review of the W.W. Norton Company hardcover edition (September 2020)

All the stars for this one. David Hajdu’s fictional non-fiction account of the life of musician Adrianne Geffel is set in the experimental avant-garde loft music world of New York City in the 1970’s and 1980’s and includes cameo appearances by real-life composers and musicians such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. The fictional pianist Geffel explodes onto this scene playing her emotionally charged music which she hears in her head constantly and which compels her to enact it on the keyboard. When she had been investigated in her early years for this condition the neurologists had described it a psychosynesthesia, a version of synesthesia that transfers thought into sound.

That all may sound flighty and esoteric, but the main point of this book is that it is hugely funny and revealing about people and with its playful satire about the postmodern art world whether it is plastic or sound art. The anonymous biographer is reconstructing Geffel’s life by interviewing her family, friends and associates. Many of these interviewees reveal more about themselves than anything about Geffel in their self-serving answers to the writer’s questions.

And in the end it is really a love story against all the odds. What can be better than that?

While writing this review I discovered that an audiobook version has also been produced, which is narrated by veteran reader Hillary Huber (Elena Ferrante’s The Neapolitan Novels etc.). I’m already eager to “re-read” for that alone.

To the best of my knowledge, this is Hajdu’s first novel, but I thoroughly enjoyed his non-fiction music biographies Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn (1996) and Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña (2001) in my pre-Goodreads reading days.

Trivia and Links
While reading Adrianne Geffel, I imagined her more experimental atonal music would sound like something by avant-garde jazz pianist Cecil Taylor. A time appropriate (1970s) recording of Cecil Taylor is Indent (1973).

After I finished reading, I searched for more information on Adrianne Geffel and discovered that author Hajdu had curated an Adrianne Geffel playlist for the Large Hearted Boy blog, which actually included a piece by Cecil Taylor.

Adrianne Geffel’s minimalist cover design got it into LitHub’s Top 10 Best Book Covers of September 2020 list.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

5+ out of 5.
So much my kind of thing: an oral history of a musician who burst onto the scene in the late 70s/early 80s in New York, taking the avant-garde SoHo scene by storm. Adrianne suffers from a rare neurological condition that, essentially, makes her hear music ALL THE TIME -- and she's able to translate that music via piano. Hajdu compiles, sometimes wryly and sometimes honestly, stories about Geffel's brilliant rise and sudden disappearance, with all of the things you'd imagine might be found in such a tale: oblivious parents, childhood sweethearts, bloviating critics, and a pair of evil (almost, but crucially not QUITE cartoonishly so; Biran in particular is chilling) men who ultimately take everything Geffel has.
It's a speedy read and it never really settles into what kind of book it wants to be -- the tone veers to the satirical sometimes without ever deciding if its going to live there -- but I loved it even for its rough edges.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was delightful, I adore “real” fiction, written as if it was real but about something invented. It brought memories of the layers of commentary about invented citations in House of Leaves, though this is a single layer of interviews. I admit I skimmed in parts (4 not 5) because I got the gist of the parody and satire being poked at the people who represent, dissect, and surround artists while also promoting themselves. I’m sure I missed some clever real world references to the music scenes of the time, but the core point of the book carried through. Well written hints among the unreliable interviewees were a real stroke of mastery, the author captured well the character of people in the world caught up in their own stories unreliably telling the stories of others.
What a fun obscure single evening read to start my year with.

[elle ☆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5🌟🌟🌟!!!

I sooo wanted to love this but unfortunately it was pretty mundane.

I saw this compared to daisy jones & the six, and although taking this comparison lightly, it still ended up disappointing me. The format of the book, I loved. But all the characters were super unlikeable, apart from a few (Barb & Ann).

I wish we got to find out about Geffel or hear from her, herself; I suppose that was the way the story was intended.

The psychological aspects were interesting and I loved the scientific aspect of her condition.

Would recommended if you’re into classical pianists !

[Michael Kubin · Rating 5 out of 5]

These times call for laughter. Correction: These times DEMAND laughter. Put a contentious election together with a pandemic, an economic meltdown, plus hurricanes and forest fires and the need for laughter is essential. Happily, David Hajdu's brilliantly and creatively funny Adrienne Geffel arrives just in time to save the day. While I am an avid reader, rarely have I sat down and finished a book in one reading. But with this one, I did just that. Each page is so well constructed, so impactfully written, and delivers so many laugh-out-loud moments that I just didn't want to return to reality (see above) when I could enjoy so many words dancing happily on the pages in front of me. Adrienne Geffel is a big winner -- the name will become part of our lexicon. A very funny book!

[Claire]

I picked this up arbitrarily and quite liked this; I melted right through it. I think it could have excoriated the 70s/80s art scene more, particularly about the emerging figure of the arts reviewer, but I thought the characterization of Barb was unexpectedly touching. Her parents were perhaps made slightly implausible, though useful. I think Hajdu did quite a lot here.

[Lila 🤸‍♀️📚😝🦭 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is Daisy Jones and the Six for classical piano enthusiasts (all music, no raunch). The format was fun and it really made me want to meet the main character. I wish it came with an accompanying soundtrack! I wanted to hear Adrienne Geffel's music. It wasn't my #1 fave, but I wouldn't warn against it. I recommended it to my pianist friend 🪩🪩

[vicki honeyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adrianne Geffel was a genius. Praised as the "Geyser of Grand Street" and the "Queen of Bleak Chic, " she was an artist, pianist and composer whose rare neurological condition enabled her to make music that was pure and unmediated emotional expression. I had to remind myself that this was a novel, not a true story . . . but what a hilarious and fascinating story! "Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn," and "Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña," biographer and music critic David Hajdu has created a totally believable fictional biography of a fictional star music artist. Geffel's life and story are revealed through the memories of those who knew her, inspired her, and exploited her: her parents, teachers, best friend, manager, critics, and lover. This must-read satire is a fun romp through the 1970/1980's avant-garde music scene in NYC and the despicable people who make up the music industry.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

If he didn’t telegraph his novel as fiction in the title, most readers, me included, might scramble to Google to find out more about the enigmatic Ms. Geffel. This is a testament to David Hajdu’s clever presentation. He disguises his narrative as oral history using multiple interviews about, but never from, his subject. The latter comes about because he stipulates at the outset that she mysteriously disappears at age 26 following a brief period of celebrity in the SoHo avant-garde music scene. On one level, Hajdu gives us the fascinating biography of a talented and troubled eclectic pianist and composer, who serves as the archetype for all of those other troubled and exploited artists whose tragic lives have been chronicled in musical biographies. One is reminded of the 27 club—those artists who experienced moments in the spotlight only to die at that young age, including Joplin, Hendrix, Cobain, Morrison, and Winehouse. Indeed, Hajdu seems to be posing a larger question: can great art be created by someone who is happy? On another level, he gives us a humorous take-down of the music industry and the self-involved people who inhabit it.

Hajdu’s plot is chronological starting with Adrianne’s childhood as a musical savant who hums along to tunes in her head that reflect her emotional state but clash dramatically when ambient music intervenes. In high school, she meets her lifelong true friend and partner, Barbara Lucher. Eventually she finds her way to Julliard, an institution that fails to nurture her talent and does not escape Hajdu’s biting satire. He portrays this renowned musical mecca as an old boy’s network where the faculty are deep into self-promotion and the students are only “required to practice their instruments, and beyond that, to be breathing.” During a brief period in a mental institution, Adrianne meets the second important influence in her life, a strange visual artist with the revealing moniker of Ann Athema. Ann’s non-existent art is beyond weird. Think of the emperor’s new clothes, and you will have it. This savvy friend recognizes Adrianne’s genius, consisting of “outbursts so vital, so mind-rattling, soul-fuckingly extreme that they burst out and fly straight through you and out of your room.” One can’t help but think of Hendrix’s rendition of the “Star-spangled Banner.” Ann helps Adrianne navigate the treacherous NY art scene; a milieu filled with short-sighted, manipulative self-promoters. Hajdu skewers everyone with his velvet blade. The despicable Biran Zervakis stands apart in this rogue’s gallery as a conniving promoter who excels in evasiveness, dishonesty, and smarminess. He masquerades as Adrianne’s friend but reveals himself as the ultimate self-promoter.

Hajdu is clearly well-acquainted with avant-garde art and criticism. He has delivered a canny and entertaining satire portraying the dark side of the music scene. One comes away with fresh insights into all of those tragic biographies of the members of Club 27. The wonder of Hajdu’s creation is that Adrianne ironically loses her musical appeal when she finds happiness but in so doing avoids the fates of her fellow club members.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Hajdu's non-fiction, but this is the first of his fiction I've read and I was kind of non-plussed. The remit here is that Hajdu is assembling an oral history of this outsider artist/ piano player in the eighties, but in practice it's mostly Hajdu creating outlandish characters and letting them speak. Occasionally these are funny asides, and sometimes they are pretty dull. Hajdu in this novel is a lot less skilled as a journalist than the real writer, letting people go on and on as he struggles, at times, to tell his story. At other times, he's setting up his subjects-- the art world, or small town music teachers, etc-- for some obvious ribbing

I think these asides and fictional interviews don't quite coalesce, either into a compelling portrait of Geffel, his titular subject, or into why she was a compelling figure. I get it that she's not real, but, well, if she's two dimensional and she's not important, why write the book? At the end of this, I don't think I felt like the book had cleared the hurdle in either case. It's occasionally diverting reading.

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

I might have been disposed to like this book if it wasn't so disingenuous. A year and a half before this book was published, "Daisy Jones and the Six", by Taylor Jenkins Reid, was published. It was a story about a troubled female musician in the late 1960's and early 1970's, written in a biographical style and comprised of excerpts from interviews from various people. And the exact same thing can be said about "Adrianne Geffel". With the subject, time period, and format easily imitateds, all the author had to do was fill in the blanks. Shame on Norton for publishing this. If you want to read a good work of biographical fiction about a female musician, then skip this and read the real thing -- Daisy Jones.

[Charlie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A swing and a rather large miss from David Hadju on Adrianne Geffel, a fictional oral history of a mysterious, mercurial avant-garde musical icon of pre-Giuliani NYC. The idea is there, sure, and Hadju's prodigious output of nonfiction music writing suggests that he would have a strong grip on the historical knowledge to be able to develop this into something rather knowledgeable. The issue is that he has very little nuance in his character development, so none of these talking heads feel particularly textured or even varied-- they are all airheads of more or less insidious natures. It's fine to have such an obvious villain, the music industry is surely full of them, but there's just so little beyond the broad strokes of characters here. I was very disappointed by this! 1.5 stars.

[Kathleen Hulser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirky imaginative sendup

Big Music takes a beating, with many lashes laid on backs of record label execs, agents and music critics. Musicologists fare no better as their academic interpretations fall thudding into the obscure pit where “tenure-documentation” prose lives. The marvelous descriptions of the faked composer Adrianne Geffel read like extracts from Rolling Stone. Hajdu’s produgy goes nuts when she hears music from outside because it disrupts the constant improvisations echoing in her head. Indeed, how ugly unwanted sound is, blotting out the beautiful music in our minds.

[Lorri Steinbacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prepub. Due out Sept 22, 2020. An interesting character study and a meditation on the way the commercial side of art and the can take something beautiful and unique and twist it without regard for the artist, particularly when the artist is one as fragile as Geffel. Also asks a lot of questions: What if your art is only considered valuable if it makes you miserable? Does happiness = bad art? Is exploitation inevitable when you try to monetize art? Recommended for fans of Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad or Reid's Daisy Jones and the Six.

[Sharon Layburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This biography of the fictional musician Adrianne Geffel was a complete lark, and I adored it!
Thanks to a rare neurological condition, Adrianne was gifted with an unusual musical talent at an early age. When, as a young woman, she truly came into her gift, the world worshiped her for it. And then destroyed her because of it.
Witty, ridiculous, and vastly entertaining, this short novel was a unique delight.

This ARC was provided by Norton, in exchange for an honest review.

[Allison Renner · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I was so excited to read this book because I loved Daisy Jones and the Six and The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes, but I couldn't get into this one. The writing was so formal and stilted that I didn't buy people were giving spoken interviews. Just a few pages in and I already couldn't tell Adrianne's parents apart because they sounded like the same stiff person. Gotta have more than that to make me commit to reading an entire book.

[Helena Carvalho · Rating 2 out of 5]

The concept of this book is quite unusual. In the begin I was really enjoy and to see how the story has unrolling ,but the history has advance without context. The story unfolds by the characters conversations. For me, it will be important to have some brief of the characters.
The book is quite descriptive of things that does not matter. I quite dislike Brian character, he seems controlling and definitely a red flag guy.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this novel, we find out about a musical prodigy named Adrianne (Adry) who has gone missing. The book is told through a series of interviews that chronicles her life and her involvement with music. The book is very well written and engaging. The book successfully creates a compelling mystery that draws the reader in.

[Nicolas Duran · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this read a page turner and deliciously funny. It seemed to be a working through of observations gathered from writing the other nonfiction music biographies I’ve read of Hajdu’s; it was light enough to be enjoyable and dark enough to have intrigue. I love his wry humor in particular. No notes!

[Maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I’m not huge into nonfiction and this reads like a non fiction memoir and it is interesting but the caveat is that none of it happened and then I’m like wait this redeeming quality of the non fiction (that it’s cool) is cancelled out by it not being real.

The first half read pretty slow for me but I liked the end more (when Adrianne is happy haha)

[Lucy Leitner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Solid, interesting premise with a bit of a boring execution. It's a fictional oral history, but the characters were all cliches. It was meant to be funny, but it came off as just picking fun at all of them. There were some funny parts, but most of the jokes didn't land for me.

[ry · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful story. I hated every single man who was involved in it. Hopefully Adry is living peacefully somewhere with Barb, married and not forced to deal with men who choose to go by Biran.
And I hope he, for what it’s worth, gets the shit beaten out of him on a daily basis.
4.5💫

[Barb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much of a fan of pseudo biographical oral histories. If you liked "Daisy Jones and the Six", you will probably like this.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read with great artsy and music characters

[Adrianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could see this being turned into a movie, a la This is Spinal Tap.

[Margie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mail character was a "different" type in that she hears music all the time and brings it to life on piano.

[Christopher Cariola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book within a few hours. It’s quirky and a humorous look at music autobiographies.

[Gary Shapiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

A funny novel about the music world. Highly enjoyable!

[yalissa *·˚ ༘ · Rating 3 out of 5]

an odd one, to be sure. someone said “daisy jones and the six but smarter.” yes!