The ink in the grooves Conversations on literature and rock 'n' roll

Dore, a musician and an academic, has created an excellent collection of old and new writing that explores the convergence of rock and literature. Dore's anthology includes pieces about Dylan; novelists writing about music, including Colson Whitehead and Rick Moody; musicians on literature and other topics, including interviews Dore conducted with Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, and Dom Flemons and an interview with Rhiannon Giddens by Scott Timberg and essays on rock as literature by Warren Zanes, Peter Guralnick, and Lorrie Moore. Virtually everything here is worthy. Other selections feature conversations with members of John Prine's band as they reminisce about him after his tragic death from COVID-19 and Dore's interview with Amy Helm, the singer-daughter of the Band's late and great drummer Levon Helm. Meanwhile, ex-Fairport Convention singer and guitarist Richard Thompson writes about the pull that ancient balladry had on him and his fellow band members and how rock (especially Dylan, Springsteen, Lou Reed, and Van Morrison) helped Roddy Doyle learn how to hate Irish music "slightly less." Other contributors include Michael Chabon, Laura Cantrell, Randall Kenan, Dave Grohl, Greil Marcus, Jonathan Lethem, Dana Spiotta, Daniel Wallace, and John Jeremiah Sullivan. Readers will want to take the time to slowly savor this rich gathering.

Novelists, musicians, and other cultural movers and shakers muse on the intersection of literature and rock music in this rich collection of essays. In "Ubu Lives!: Remembering Punk and Its Stories," Rick Moody makes a case that Pere Ubu was "perhaps one of most formidable rock and roll bands ever." In "The Genius and Modern Times of Bob Dylan," Jonathan Lethem recounts interviewing Dylan: "It's awfully easy, taking the role of Dylan's interviewer, to feel oneself playing surrogate for an audience that has never quit holding its hero to an impossible standard: the more he offers, the more we want." The standout is "Whack Fol the Daddy-O," Roddy Doyle's bristling and moving sociopolitical account of his shifting relationship with Irish music and of writing his novel The Commitments. Not each essay is as strong (Michael Chabon's "Let It Rock" is a bit too inward-looking to connect with any larger notion of a symbiosis between literature and music), but taken together, the pieces offer an impressive level of insight. Music lovers with a literary bent will find this worth tuning in to. (Oct.)