Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
65th out of 360 books
—
489 voters
Major Inversions
by
Gordon Highland (Goodreads Author)
Your roommate says you should date more, that all those spandex nights on stage paying tribute to hair metal and banging faceless groupies only amplify your Jekyll/Hyde syndrome. That this quicksand town of floozies, fiends, and filmmakers will survive without your commercial jingles. And your narcotics. That you should turn in your daytime security-guard badge and settle...more
Paperback, 278 pages
Published
August 7th 2009
by Createspace
(first published 2009)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
102)
(this review originally appeared at Outsider Writers Collective
Gordon Highland’s Major Inversion is a first-person meta-tale dominated by the seductive and confident Drew Ballard, 80’s tribute and Jazz fusion guitarist by night, commercial jingle scribe and drug enthused security guard by day. Highland writes with a narrative voice so full of wit and humor, it would be wise to read with a cynical cock-blocking fat friend at your side; the hair-metal spandex and verbal dexterity can make a persua...more
Gordon Highland’s Major Inversion is a first-person meta-tale dominated by the seductive and confident Drew Ballard, 80’s tribute and Jazz fusion guitarist by night, commercial jingle scribe and drug enthused security guard by day. Highland writes with a narrative voice so full of wit and humor, it would be wise to read with a cynical cock-blocking fat friend at your side; the hair-metal spandex and verbal dexterity can make a persua...more
Gordon Highland’s debut novel, Major Inversions, takes a little while to get going, but the whole winds up being greater than the sum of its parts.
Odds are you won’t like the main character, Drew Ballard. He plays in a hair metal cover band, sleeps with groupies, works off and on as a security guard / commercial jingle writer (everyone is a ‘slash’ in Highland’s town), does too many drugs and torments his nerdy roommate, Barron Vaughn, more than he seemingly deserves. While some readers might h...more
Odds are you won’t like the main character, Drew Ballard. He plays in a hair metal cover band, sleeps with groupies, works off and on as a security guard / commercial jingle writer (everyone is a ‘slash’ in Highland’s town), does too many drugs and torments his nerdy roommate, Barron Vaughn, more than he seemingly deserves. While some readers might h...more
4 likes · like · see review
view 1 comment
Drew Ballard is perhaps the least likely protagonist ever. For one, he’s not all that likable, being a drug-dealing and abusing rent-a-cop with musical talent – he plays in a hair metal tribute act, The Down Boys, a jazz fusion act called, Feu Jeune, and works as the jingle writer of choice for the Wilmington area. He’s also a slacker despite his workload, with no real goals beside the next gig. The only thing he wants to do with women is of the carnal desire. He really shouldn’t be the center o...more
Major Inversions isn't the sort of book you can casually pick up and read. This book demands your attention. Usually I'd say that because the plot has enough complexity to ask more from you than average, but that's not the case here.
The demand from this book is in the prose. The subject matter isn't my cup of tea, but the language is rich, the choice of words meticulously thought out, and there are layers and undertones worth watching for. All that's great, but at times it feels like you're wadi...more
The demand from this book is in the prose. The subject matter isn't my cup of tea, but the language is rich, the choice of words meticulously thought out, and there are layers and undertones worth watching for. All that's great, but at times it feels like you're wadi...more
Major Inversions surprised me, and in the good way.
Drew Ballard writes commercial jingles and plays in various bands, ranging from white-collar jazz gigs to glam rock 80's bands. Oh, and he's also a part-time drug dealer and security guard. The line between his interests and the way he makes money is definitely blurry. He is funny, self-deprecating, and even a bit cocky. His life seems to be a semi-functional equilibrium of loneliness, drugs, music, and interior observations, and the first few...more
Drew Ballard writes commercial jingles and plays in various bands, ranging from white-collar jazz gigs to glam rock 80's bands. Oh, and he's also a part-time drug dealer and security guard. The line between his interests and the way he makes money is definitely blurry. He is funny, self-deprecating, and even a bit cocky. His life seems to be a semi-functional equilibrium of loneliness, drugs, music, and interior observations, and the first few...more
This novel blew my mind. I loved it.
I expected competence from Highland's debut novel, I assumed he could write well enough, but this novel didn't seem to be my thing; I couldn't tell where the story would lead or how it would manifest any depth, as these things go dangerously unadvertised in the book's description. In fact, the storyline alone is fantastic. Unexpected, interesting and moving, it covers all the points of a high-quality novel. Above that, the narrator is among the best I've rea...more
This is a funny, dark book, that stays with you. If you like 80s music, hair bands, pop culture, and humor, then this is the book for you. I've seen references to Nick Hornby, and that is a great example, correlation. This was a fun read, very enjoyable.
Loved it - more, please!
May 20, 2013
Inkwellmonster
marked it as to-read
May 07, 2013
Heather Elizabeth
marked it as to-read
Feb 27, 2013
Bamadan
marked it as to-read
Feb 06, 2013
Sparks
marked it as to-read
Feb 03, 2013
Hannah
marked it as to-read
Dec 25, 2012
Tiểu
marked it as to-read
Oct 23, 2012
Nancestress
marked it as to-read
Oct 09, 2012
Cecilia
marked it as to-read
Aug 27, 2012
Lydia
marked it as to-read
Aug 26, 2012
Paul Brazill
marked it as to-read
Aug 24, 2012
Irina
marked it as to-read
Aug 17, 2012
Vishal
added it
Aug 12, 2012
Holly
marked it as to-read
Aug 01, 2012
Linda
marked it as to-read
Jul 26, 2012
Zairul Hisham
marked it as to-read
Jun 29, 2012
Dakota Taylor
marked it as to-read
Jun 04, 2012
Stephanie
marked it as to-read
Mar 01, 2012
Sgossard
marked it as to-read
Feb 29, 2012
Alyssa
marked it as to-read
Feb 22, 2012
Danielle
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Gordon Highland is the author of the novels Flashover and Major Inversions, a columnist for ManArchy Magazine, and has published short stories in Word Riot, Warmed and Bound, Noir at the Bar Vol. 2, In Search of a City, Solarcide, and others. He lives in the Kansas City area, where he makes videos by day and music by night.
More about Gordon Highland...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“Heavenly Father, I promise never again (or for three business days, whichever comes first) to take your blessings for granted if your boundless wisdom can manifest to smite this motherfucker. I don’t know, rain down some sulphur, whisper divine suggestion into his ear, even the old salt pillar trick would suffice. But ... I will take up thy sword and act as the county’s mortal archangel once again if I must. I swear to your oft-alleged earthly son that if this thug doesn’t put the toddler down and stop swinging that oversized plastic bat at us, he’ll spend his weekend removing my well-shined size eleven Florsheim from his PCP-smoking ass at the Ballard Institute for Deadbeat Dad Castration.”
—
3 people liked it
“I’ll keep this part short, because no one truly gives a shit about this kind of stuff, and I’m sure you don’t, either. They want to read about someone with more tragic failings than themselves surviving hell to get the girl in the very end. Anything to make their dull existences tolerable, their literary doses coming four minutes at a time on the crapper one-point-seven times per day. By my calculations, that puts you about one week into this story, far too removed emotionally to possibly understand my actions.”
—
1 person liked it
More quotes…
