Broad Street by Christine Weiser is nothing short of an hilarious, entertaining romp peopled by idiosyncratic and wonderfully offbeat characters.
Okay, I'm biased. I love reading novels about strong, single-minded women with testosterone addled musician boyfriends with names like Dale who cause them endless worry and who cheat on them and treat them badly and then the women seek revenge
by setting up their own rock band that eventually starts to make it in the jealousy-riddled mid-90s Philly rock band scene.
In a story that brings the streets of Philadelphia and various haunts to glorious life, Weiser (who plays bass in a band) in unadorned, direct prose unfurls Philly mainline Kit's tale of a dead-end copy-editing job with a shrew boss called Jean who later radically transforms, drunken band practice sessions with her fellow musician Margo, a jaunt to play at a club in D.C., a spot of rivalry with another female band called The Pussy Willows and much regretted trysts in bed in untidy apartments with people she can't remember or doesn't like.
Published by PS Books, a division of Philadelphia Stories, this is a novel sure to please many, especially those who wish they'd taken the plunge and joined
that rock band in their hedonistic twenties.
It's available from Amazon and in paperback and has a Kindle edition, too.
