First published 1995
The members of Hi-Fi take the stage at yet another poorly paid New York club date. Reagan's inaugural address plays on a television in the background while the third-rate bar band struggles through their set. Their equipment breaks down. Egos clash between band members. The sparse audience grows restless, teetering between indifference and hostility. What starts as one unremarkable night at a downtown venue expands into an exhaustive chronicle of Hi-Fi's mundane details. This band embodies "suburb sound and the suburb feel," trapped in mediocrity while America transitions into a new decade. Sorrentino captures the collision between rock mythology and grinding reality, exploring how pop culture both elevates and disappoints those who chase its promises in the wreckage of 1980s society.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: gritty, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: mundane-details, rock-mythology
Setting: New York
Period: 1980s
210 pages · Hardcover · Dalkey Archive Press