Wonderkid

by Wesley Stace Narrated by Wesley Stace

Overview

Sold-out concerts, screaming fans, TV shows, Number Ones. This is the rock and roll dream, and the Wonderkids are living it. But something's wrong. The gigs are sold out, sure, but the halls are packed with little kids - not sexy hipsters. Edward Lear, the Wonderkids' lead singer, songwriter, and resident mad genius Blake Lear has always written lyrics as silly as they are infectious. Rock and roll has always been for the kids, right? This is why Blake has no objection when the band is offered a deal with the devil: the Wonderkids will be rock stars, adored and revered. The catch? Their audience will be children. The band takes America by storm, and things go very right - until they go very wrong.

Editorial Reviews

Rosanne Cash

Wesley Stace has written one of the very few novels about rock bands and the music business that doesn't have a single false note or outsider-wannabe pretensions. It's a relief - and a joy - to read about the weird particularities of the lives of musicians by someone who knows the world so intimately. He deconstructs, with an elegant and sharp eye, the heightened sense of the unreality of fame, the relentless grind of touring, and the Ego and the Id made deliciously manifest in the Wonderkids (my favorite new band). He is both ruthless and compassionate, but never cynical. I thought about these characters even when I wasn't reading the book, and the story will stay with me for a very long time. Wonderkid has both enormous entertainment value and serious literary worth, a very hard trick to pull off.

Library Journal - Audio

11/01/2014
Under the direction of the madly energetic and bizarre Blake Lear, a group of London misfits go from being an unnoticed band to a huge sensation in America. The reason for their success? The record label decided to market them to a new audience: children. In Los Angeles they pick up some new band members and put together a show that kids and their parents will enjoy. Told from the perspective of Sweet (Blake's recently adopted kid, only ten years his junior), the gradual rise of the Wonderkids is a sight to behold. Stace's debut is laugh-out-loud funny and believable. The story starts out a bit slowly, but by the time the band is in America it picks up massive momentum and becomes impossible to put down. The author narrates brilliantly, complete with hilarious impressions and two bonus songs at the end. (Stace is also known as folk singer John Wesley Harding.) VERDICT A must- listen for fans of music memoirs and humor. ["Readers who enjoy rock fiction and memoirs will enjoy this outing by a writer who knows the score," read the review of the Overlook hc, LJ 2/1/14.]—Erin Cataldi, Johnson Cty. P.L., Franklin, IN

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175426121
Publisher:	Dreamscape Media
Publication date:	05/31/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

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