Glimpses

by Lewis Shiner and Lewis Shiner

Book Overview

Ray Shackleford lives in the ruins of the idealistic 1960s. Veteran of failed garage bands, he works as a repairman of stereo equipment, tending the dying embers of his marriage, and dreaming of bygone days and the music that almost was. When he finds the music he dreams of has been mysteriously recorded by his tape deck, Ray is drawn into the past, to revisit the histories of Hendrix, Morrison, and the Beatles...along with the history of Ray Shackleford...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380723646
• ISBN13: 9780380723645
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

listen with your heart - you will understand

All right, I know it's strange to start speaking about a book, which touches upon the Doors, Beach Boys and Hendrix with a quote from a Disney song, but it IS an appropriate one.Because this book is not only about music, but also about how we react to it, and how our life changes (maybe) because of music.I'm too young to remember the 60s (being born in 1976), but this novel really fleshed out that era and its people for me. I think that for those, who really was there it will be even better.Glimpses is not fantasy in ebveryday sence. I'd say it's magical realism, not unlike Jonathan Carrol or Haruki Murakami. And the thing that makes it really great, is that it can convey to you the feeling of listening to the best music that never was, and I can't think of many authors who can wright about music so vividly. That's a tremendous achivement.In short: this book lets you glimpse another world. And it as real as this one. I don't know how Mr. Shiner does it. It's a kind of magic

Magical!

Jill likes this folk song that is quite appropriate for our generation. The song, written and sung by a Gen Xer, tells about how all the Baby Boomers tell her that "it must be sad to have been born a little late." Being born late, the Gen Xer missed out on so much: the Summer of Love, Peace Marches, etc. The Gen Xer thinks this is a load of crap and wishes the Baby Boomers would just get over it (and grow up, for chrissakes). I've expressed a similar sentiment before in these pages, but directed at the generation before the Boomers and their fixation on the crash of the American Pie and the loss of Valens et al. So when I say that I found this Boomer book--about how the music and culture of their collective childhood was so great--fabulous, you know that it faced a tough audience.Glimpses does not hide the fact that it is about the 60s and rock music (given the demographics of the population, probably wise--there are a lot more reminiscing Boomers than fed-up Xers), and I likely took my time turning to it because it wore its influences on its jacket. I bought the book when it came out because I knew Lew Shiner from Austin and had all his other books. Lew's previous novels are kind of a mixed bag. His first, Frontera, was published by Baen, not your usual source for quality literature, and while enjoyable enough at the time, I'm not sure that Frontera has weathered quite as well as its cyberpunk contemporaries. In his second novel, Deserted Cities of the Heart, Lew's style and subject matter improved tremendously. In my internal cataloging schema, I tend to group Deserted Cities of the Heart with Pat Murphy's The City, Not Long After and Karen Joy Fowler's Artificial Things. See the paradigm shift: from Cyberpunk to feminism in one novel. Deserted Cities of the Heart was still genre, however, and Lew totally dispensed with that in his third novel, Slam. It's not quite correct, but the voice in my head associates Slam with the line in Michelle Shocked's "Anchorage" that goes "what's it like being a skate-boarding punk rocker." The writer's progress in the three novels is readily apparent, and I liked each succeeding book much more than its predecessors. But there was still that jacket painting of Jim Morrison, Brian Wilson and Jimi Hendrix prompting the irrational knee-jerk response.Several things finally broke through my resistance, including Glimpses winning the World Fantasy Award, unsolicited comments and recommendations for the book from several First Impressions and Rondua members, and then it appeared in the middle of all the Anthony Powell that Alexandria Digital Literature recommends that I read. A long plane trip to New Jersey was the final straw.I started reading it hesitantly, then slowly relaxed and started enjoying it rather than dreading it. By the time I got to page 50 I had to close the book and let the wave of "good vibrations" flow over me before continuing. It did not matter that I had waited three years before reading this--eve

It's got a backbeat, you can't lose it...

If ever a book deserved to come back into print and stay in print, this is it. Lewis Shiner has written the great American rock and roll novel. Ray Shackleford has the ability to step into the past and call forth music that never was -- but should have been. His journey will be through both darkness and light, of self discovery and myth shattering. Like any good rock and roll tune, it is at once sad and joyous. The writing makes the time period he travels to (the 60's) so palpable, we feel as if we might walk around a corner and step into them ourselves. The scenes involving Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys' "lost" album Smile are alone worth any effort it might take to locate this book. In the song "American Pie", Don McLean posed the question: "Can music save your mortal soul?" If you read this novel, you will know without a doubt the answer is "Yes."

A classic!

A well-written character-oriented sci-fi, rock & roll novel This is a great read for science fiction fans and rock and roll fans alike. A compelling story of a man's search for meaning in his life (and sorting out his relationship with his late father) set against a background of "Twilight Zone-ish" in nature. This is a highly enjoyable novel. If you're a music fan, don't let the sci-fi tag steer you away from this, and vice versa. I've read this twice, and plan to read it again!