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Anything Goes
The only taste of life Jesse has known in his twenty years is his mother disappeared before he could talk, his father never got over being left, and Jesse’s presence seems only to kindle his father’s anger. Jesse’s talent is for music, which has given him a livelihood and a home as a bass player in a bar band called Anything Goes. Band life offers the opportunity for the dregs of experience (hangovers, mildewed hotel rooms), and the antics of his band mates (all of them older than he is; some of them wiser, some not) offer more schooling in hard knocks.
Anything Goes tells Jesse’s story over the course of a year, during which he finds his life slowly being tempered by the by a dad who wants to make up and be part of Jesse’s life; by a female lead singer who suddenly makes the band sound a lot better than they have any right to be; and by the confidence Jesse begins to feel in his own musical talent.
A complete departure from the sweeping historical vision of Madison Smartt Bell’s Haitian novels and the gritty cynicism of his intense urban dramas, Anything Goes confirms Bell as one of the most versatile, most gifted, most surprising novelists of his generation.
Anything Goes tells Jesse’s story over the course of a year, during which he finds his life slowly being tempered by the by a dad who wants to make up and be part of Jesse’s life; by a female lead singer who suddenly makes the band sound a lot better than they have any right to be; and by the confidence Jesse begins to feel in his own musical talent.
A complete departure from the sweeping historical vision of Madison Smartt Bell’s Haitian novels and the gritty cynicism of his intense urban dramas, Anything Goes confirms Bell as one of the most versatile, most gifted, most surprising novelists of his generation.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
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74 people want to read
About the author
Madison Smartt Bell
57 books174 followersMadison Smartt Bell is a critically acclaimed writer of more than a dozen novels and story collections, as well as numerous essays and reviews for publications such as Harper’s and the New York Times Book Review. His books have been finalists for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, among other honors. Bell has also taught at distinguished creative writing programs including the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Johns Hopkins, and Goucher College. His work is notable for its sweeping historical and philosophical scope matched with a remarkable sensitivity to the individual voices of characters on the margins of society.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 2, 2010
My S.F. Chronicle review from 2002:
About halfway through this deliciously entertaining novel about an unexceptional blues and rock band and the series of dive bars it calls home, the coked-up lead guitarist walks off in a huff just before a gig. This time, he's gone for good.
Desperate, the band turns to a squirrelly con-man character with slicked- back hair and a "fairly pleasant, hound-dog expression." He's a loser, the kind of guy who asks for a cigarette, pockets the pack, and then gives you his best s-- -eating grin when you ask to have them back. But he can play. The dude can flat-out play.
"A guy like that, he didn't have to play much to let you know what you were dealing with," the bass-player-narrator tells us. "Five notes, one note, it hardly mattered. Perry called this the authority, but I thought it was his time, the rock-solid time tuning his hands to his head and letting anybody listening know that this one did have the mojo."
That's the same feeling the reader gets early on about Madison Smartt Bell in "Anything Goes," his 13th book of fiction. Bell has the mojo, he can flat- out play, and the tunefulness and life-knowledge and honest emotion all come ringing off the page.
The question, if you've got the mojo, is what to do with it. "Willard," the con-man guitarist with the sweet touch, slides through life, picking up women and gambling debts in big piles, and doing pretty much whatever he wants. His talent comes in handy, but he doesn't burn to put it to use or say much of anything with it.
The kid-narrator, Jesse, is different. Some mornings after another gig in the local Black Cat, as all the dive bars in the book are called, he'll head across to the beach in some forgettable town in the Carolinas or somewhere, and just float in the ocean for hours. He floats in the music, too. It's larger than he is, vaster, and sometimes he feels as if he's drowning. But even then, he's serious about it.
"I got out the Hummingbird and ran my bag of tricks up and down the neck,
but all of it sounded dull and distant," he tells us during one off-season stint hanging out at the house of the band leader (and father figure), Perry.
"It wasn't the guitar's fault. I just couldn't think of anything I wanted to play. If it was gonna be like that, why bother? I knew plenty of guys who played in bands that from the way they talked and acted had just as soon be swinging a nine-pound hammer. Easy enough for it to turn into any old kind of a job. . . . Only I didn't have no other ideas either. Every tune I knew seemed dry."
Most good rock 'n' roll is about pain, in the end. That's especially true at the blues end of the spectrum, where Jesse lives. He turns out to be a kid with talent, much more so than seems obvious early in the book, but it's only by getting down to the nitty-gritty of dealing with his own pain that he gives himself a shot at connecting with his own mojo.
This takes us into some wrenching, difficult territory involving Jesse's father, but Bell's fresh writing and knowing portraits of life on the road keep the story from ever feeling pat. Some of the big plot twists unfold with no sense of surprise, but that doesn't really feel like a letdown, any more than it does to expect a band to play a certain tune, and then hear just what you were expecting.
Bell misses a few notes. He goes for it in establishing a narrative voice that is earthy and real, unfettered by the drum-machine smoothness of language favored by the overeducated. This is exactly the right approach, and energy crackles on almost every page. We read of "bad-smelling fear sweat" or "not getting my dip in the old honey pot" and, a couple of times, someone gives someone the gimlet eye. Jesse doesn't want to look at a picture "no more" and when he meets some frat boys, he tells us, "I grunted something toward the meats anyway, and they grunted something back."
Elsewhere, though, like a lead guitarist who wants to get in his solo at the expense of the band's overall purpose, Bell can't help himself. A promising description of playing music in a kitchen at sunset, "when the light would come in slantwise through the window," goes on to say that the light "would even make the dust floating off the furniture look gilded." And prissy words like "quarrel" and "logy" (only Pauline Kael can use "logy") and even "congealed" pop up.
But so what? You listen to B.B. King or Clapton for the emotion and truth, not to parse a turnaround. What Bell has given us here is a story, like Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity," that uses the fun of a rock 'n' roll background to keep you turning the pages but stays with you, hauntingly and beautifully. It comes through with insight and a sense of discovery the reader can take as his own -- and all without having any beer spilled on him.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi...
This article appeared on page RV - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
About halfway through this deliciously entertaining novel about an unexceptional blues and rock band and the series of dive bars it calls home, the coked-up lead guitarist walks off in a huff just before a gig. This time, he's gone for good.
Desperate, the band turns to a squirrelly con-man character with slicked- back hair and a "fairly pleasant, hound-dog expression." He's a loser, the kind of guy who asks for a cigarette, pockets the pack, and then gives you his best s-- -eating grin when you ask to have them back. But he can play. The dude can flat-out play.
"A guy like that, he didn't have to play much to let you know what you were dealing with," the bass-player-narrator tells us. "Five notes, one note, it hardly mattered. Perry called this the authority, but I thought it was his time, the rock-solid time tuning his hands to his head and letting anybody listening know that this one did have the mojo."
That's the same feeling the reader gets early on about Madison Smartt Bell in "Anything Goes," his 13th book of fiction. Bell has the mojo, he can flat- out play, and the tunefulness and life-knowledge and honest emotion all come ringing off the page.
The question, if you've got the mojo, is what to do with it. "Willard," the con-man guitarist with the sweet touch, slides through life, picking up women and gambling debts in big piles, and doing pretty much whatever he wants. His talent comes in handy, but he doesn't burn to put it to use or say much of anything with it.
The kid-narrator, Jesse, is different. Some mornings after another gig in the local Black Cat, as all the dive bars in the book are called, he'll head across to the beach in some forgettable town in the Carolinas or somewhere, and just float in the ocean for hours. He floats in the music, too. It's larger than he is, vaster, and sometimes he feels as if he's drowning. But even then, he's serious about it.
"I got out the Hummingbird and ran my bag of tricks up and down the neck,
but all of it sounded dull and distant," he tells us during one off-season stint hanging out at the house of the band leader (and father figure), Perry.
"It wasn't the guitar's fault. I just couldn't think of anything I wanted to play. If it was gonna be like that, why bother? I knew plenty of guys who played in bands that from the way they talked and acted had just as soon be swinging a nine-pound hammer. Easy enough for it to turn into any old kind of a job. . . . Only I didn't have no other ideas either. Every tune I knew seemed dry."
Most good rock 'n' roll is about pain, in the end. That's especially true at the blues end of the spectrum, where Jesse lives. He turns out to be a kid with talent, much more so than seems obvious early in the book, but it's only by getting down to the nitty-gritty of dealing with his own pain that he gives himself a shot at connecting with his own mojo.
This takes us into some wrenching, difficult territory involving Jesse's father, but Bell's fresh writing and knowing portraits of life on the road keep the story from ever feeling pat. Some of the big plot twists unfold with no sense of surprise, but that doesn't really feel like a letdown, any more than it does to expect a band to play a certain tune, and then hear just what you were expecting.
Bell misses a few notes. He goes for it in establishing a narrative voice that is earthy and real, unfettered by the drum-machine smoothness of language favored by the overeducated. This is exactly the right approach, and energy crackles on almost every page. We read of "bad-smelling fear sweat" or "not getting my dip in the old honey pot" and, a couple of times, someone gives someone the gimlet eye. Jesse doesn't want to look at a picture "no more" and when he meets some frat boys, he tells us, "I grunted something toward the meats anyway, and they grunted something back."
Elsewhere, though, like a lead guitarist who wants to get in his solo at the expense of the band's overall purpose, Bell can't help himself. A promising description of playing music in a kitchen at sunset, "when the light would come in slantwise through the window," goes on to say that the light "would even make the dust floating off the furniture look gilded." And prissy words like "quarrel" and "logy" (only Pauline Kael can use "logy") and even "congealed" pop up.
But so what? You listen to B.B. King or Clapton for the emotion and truth, not to parse a turnaround. What Bell has given us here is a story, like Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity," that uses the fun of a rock 'n' roll background to keep you turning the pages but stays with you, hauntingly and beautifully. It comes through with insight and a sense of discovery the reader can take as his own -- and all without having any beer spilled on him.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi...
This article appeared on page RV - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
March 21, 2010
It took me a long time to get through this "dullish" book. There was a part in there regarding his dad's apology for abusing him as a kid that part I liked.
March 4, 2019
oh the south and oh music. entertaining, some character development, appealing protagonist, and special kudos for getting the language right.
January 31, 2023
Music at the end of the grunge era.
https://discontinuednotes.com/2023/01...
https://discontinuednotes.com/2023/01...
April 3, 2013
Madison Smartt Bell’s thirteenth novel, Anything Goes, follows a year in the life of protagonist Jesse Melungeon. Jesse is the bass player for a cover band called Anything Goes. While the novel deals with the struggles of the band to stay afloat it also reveals Jesse’s complicated family history. Throughout its plot, the novel deals with complex issues such as race, abuse, and addiction.
Bell ingeniously develops Jesse’s character throughout the novel. Over time, Jesse becomes a more dynamic and round character. Although you learn Jesse’s history fairly early, his feelings about it are revealed slowly throughout the book. Not only does his characterization develop, but so do his relationships. Those that seem relatively simple at first are shown to be much more complex. Both the characters and relationships in the novel are complicated and realistic, greatly adding to its overall impact.
As Jesse says in Anything Goes, “there would always be people who actually were drawn to your wounds more than to you.” The characters in the novel are wounded in different ways. They deal with complicated family drama, brushes with the law, conflicts of interest, and various other problems. Although these issues are nothing new to literature, they do not seem cliché in the book. Bell is able to write wounded characters and explain them in a way that is meaningful.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the music theory that is incorporated throughout. The musical aspects of Anything Goes only add to the novel. Whether or not you know music theory, it feels like you can almost hear the songs playing in your head.
Bell displays extensive research in this novel. Overall, Anything Goes is a well-written and engaging novel that uses plot to explore emotion. The characters and relationships are realistic and interesting. You won’t want to put this book down.
Review by April Hanks
Bell ingeniously develops Jesse’s character throughout the novel. Over time, Jesse becomes a more dynamic and round character. Although you learn Jesse’s history fairly early, his feelings about it are revealed slowly throughout the book. Not only does his characterization develop, but so do his relationships. Those that seem relatively simple at first are shown to be much more complex. Both the characters and relationships in the novel are complicated and realistic, greatly adding to its overall impact.
As Jesse says in Anything Goes, “there would always be people who actually were drawn to your wounds more than to you.” The characters in the novel are wounded in different ways. They deal with complicated family drama, brushes with the law, conflicts of interest, and various other problems. Although these issues are nothing new to literature, they do not seem cliché in the book. Bell is able to write wounded characters and explain them in a way that is meaningful.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the music theory that is incorporated throughout. The musical aspects of Anything Goes only add to the novel. Whether or not you know music theory, it feels like you can almost hear the songs playing in your head.
Bell displays extensive research in this novel. Overall, Anything Goes is a well-written and engaging novel that uses plot to explore emotion. The characters and relationships are realistic and interesting. You won’t want to put this book down.
Review by April Hanks
July 20, 2013
Déjà envoûtée par les talents de conteur de Madison Smartt Bell avec All Souls Rising et le chemin vers l'indépendance d'Haïti, me voilà qui renouvelle l'expérience, cette fois-ci dans un tout autre registre.
"Anything Goes", titre original du roman, c'est aussi le nom d'un groupe de blues, peut-être un peu de rock, d'un peu tous les genres dans ce ton là, un groupe comme tant d'autres, qui vivote sur les circuit des bistrots et gargotes dans le Sud des USA, fuyant l'hiver, sans se démarquer, ni vraiment se renouveler.
"Quel intérêt ?", me direz-vous. Ah. L'intérêt, c'est la dynamique entre les membres du groupes, tous très différents. Mais c'est aussi l'histoire familiale de Jesse, le narrateur, et par conséquent, des questionnements sur ses origines et le racisme (jamais vraiment évoqué directement, simplement mentionné, mais toujours là, comme une tension permanente).
Ou encore le quotidien du groupe "en tournée", avec son public souvent involontaire, ses embrouilles, ses histoires de nanas, de jeu, de fric, de drogue, la routine, la lassitude & les motels miteux... on y est.
Et surtout la mention constante de la musique, au fil des reprises puis des compos qui s’immiscent dans l'humeur de Jesse, ou lentement distillées de son humeur, aussi. Une musique qui enveloppe chaque mot, chaque phrase, de manière si subtile qu'elle nous accompagne flottant à la limite de la conscience tout au long du roman, un personnage à part entière.
Un road trip mélancolique et humain, bien loin de l'image bling-bling & glamour que l'on nous vend trop souvent avec la musique.
"Anything Goes", titre original du roman, c'est aussi le nom d'un groupe de blues, peut-être un peu de rock, d'un peu tous les genres dans ce ton là, un groupe comme tant d'autres, qui vivote sur les circuit des bistrots et gargotes dans le Sud des USA, fuyant l'hiver, sans se démarquer, ni vraiment se renouveler.
"Quel intérêt ?", me direz-vous. Ah. L'intérêt, c'est la dynamique entre les membres du groupes, tous très différents. Mais c'est aussi l'histoire familiale de Jesse, le narrateur, et par conséquent, des questionnements sur ses origines et le racisme (jamais vraiment évoqué directement, simplement mentionné, mais toujours là, comme une tension permanente).
Ou encore le quotidien du groupe "en tournée", avec son public souvent involontaire, ses embrouilles, ses histoires de nanas, de jeu, de fric, de drogue, la routine, la lassitude & les motels miteux... on y est.
Et surtout la mention constante de la musique, au fil des reprises puis des compos qui s’immiscent dans l'humeur de Jesse, ou lentement distillées de son humeur, aussi. Une musique qui enveloppe chaque mot, chaque phrase, de manière si subtile qu'elle nous accompagne flottant à la limite de la conscience tout au long du roman, un personnage à part entière.
Un road trip mélancolique et humain, bien loin de l'image bling-bling & glamour que l'on nous vend trop souvent avec la musique.
July 26, 2013
This is a first-person account from a young guy who's in a touring cover band. He has kind of a shaky relationship with his father and women, etc. You know. Kind of your standard coming-of-age stuff. This character is a complete fluff-brain. He has almost no thoughts about anything, and the author conveys this convincingly and well. By the end of the book, he's having thoughts, but they're still pretty elementary ones. Nevertheless, it's interesting to watch the character "evolve" to that point.
There wasn't anything particularly moving about the events relayed. I didn't feel like crying or dancing or celebrating or mourning, but somehow the book kept me reading. Were I the editor, I'd have cut about 30 pages near the end of the book because (for me) it began to drag. Other than that, I did enjoy it.
There wasn't anything particularly moving about the events relayed. I didn't feel like crying or dancing or celebrating or mourning, but somehow the book kept me reading. Were I the editor, I'd have cut about 30 pages near the end of the book because (for me) it began to drag. Other than that, I did enjoy it.
June 9, 2019
Classic small-bore novel about the titular small-time bar band. It's told from the perspective of Jesse, the bass player. It just features a nice cast of characters, from total assholes to pretty decent dudes and ladies.
It's just a nice, well-told, well-written novel.
One thing I've noted a lot of people seem to think is that dude's name is Jesse Melungeon. Not so. "Melungeons" are a backwoods tribe or group of people in the Applachians whose origins are supposed to be mysterious.
Rereading in 2019, it is fascinating how pre-internet the proceedings are. No one seems to have a cell phone even. I suppose Perry would have Opinions about how phone books are better. Seems like that kind of guy.
It's just a nice, well-told, well-written novel.
One thing I've noted a lot of people seem to think is that dude's name is Jesse Melungeon. Not so. "Melungeons" are a backwoods tribe or group of people in the Applachians whose origins are supposed to be mysterious.
Rereading in 2019, it is fascinating how pre-internet the proceedings are. No one seems to have a cell phone even. I suppose Perry would have Opinions about how phone books are better. Seems like that kind of guy.
August 21, 2013
Jesse plays bass in the bar band called Anything Goes, which unfortunately is falling apart. While on a never ending tour of dive bars and one night stands, Jesse tries to hang on through the endless grind of the tour to re-establish a relationship with his father, start a relationship with the new lead singer, and improve as a musician.
I used to see a lot of bar bands and had always wondered what life may be like for them, traveling around together trying to make enough to get to the next town. This book gives some insight into that life and into the hearts and minds of its band members: Jesse, the bass player and Perry, the group’s leader, as well as others.
I used to see a lot of bar bands and had always wondered what life may be like for them, traveling around together trying to make enough to get to the next town. This book gives some insight into that life and into the hearts and minds of its band members: Jesse, the bass player and Perry, the group’s leader, as well as others.
June 23, 2011
While Madison Smartt Bell doesn't use my favorite style of writing, I enjoyed the characters for not fitting into any stereotypes and for appearing quite real and conflicted without any easy answers. Even though we join Jesse in his twenties, the story feels very much like a coming-of-age tale, well woven and interesting. I must admit to some jealousy that the descriptions of chord progressions and musical genius was lost on me - definitely made me wish I'd grown up with some kind of musical background. :)
January 4, 2015
I had this book sitting on my shelf for quite some time before chance had me pick it up. I really liked it, because I couldn't compare it to any other book. This is a slice of life that I would never have otherwise experienced. I found it true to life how people set up family in different ways, even ways that are bewildering to themselves. I loved Perry, a substitute but still flawed father figure. The reviews for this thing are all over the place. I guess it depends on where you are in your own life journey as to whether or not it will ring true to you. Give it a try.
August 3, 2007
Love this author.
In this book, we're on the road for about a year with a 20-y.o. bass player in a small-time band traveling up-n-down the east coast playing dive clubs with the band. Very authentic folks, story, experiences.
In this book, we're on the road for about a year with a 20-y.o. bass player in a small-time band traveling up-n-down the east coast playing dive clubs with the band. Very authentic folks, story, experiences.
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June 23, 2016Jeff says:
I used to see a lot of bar bands and had always wondered what life may be like for them, traveling around together trying to make enough to get to the next town. This book gives some insight into that life and into the hearts and minds of its band members: Jesse, the bass player and Perry, the group’s leader, as well as others.
I used to see a lot of bar bands and had always wondered what life may be like for them, traveling around together trying to make enough to get to the next town. This book gives some insight into that life and into the hearts and minds of its band members: Jesse, the bass player and Perry, the group’s leader, as well as others.
January 5, 2011
I thought that this book was a very realistic novel of on the road life for many people back in the day. people did do this sort of thing back then and I think it was a pleasing read you should read it.
December 26, 2013
a story of a professional musician on a tour loop with mid success. He finds the right ingredients for his band and then realizes he can be the musician he wants to be if he stops worrying and plays. A semi sad, semi hopeful book. Lots of music discussions - often beyond my knowledge.
February 4, 2011
Just read this book. It's an interesting read, esp. for a guy book.
August 1, 2008
san diego
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews