Liner Notes

by James Brubaker

Fiction. Music. "The stories in James Brubaker's LINER NOTES are extraordinary, with lines that recall Ben Marcus and Gabriel Blackwell. It's amazing what Brubaker's fiction does with language and the obsession with music, sound, and pop culture. An erudite work of avant-garde fiction, with cameos by Phil Spector, Albert Ayler, Brian Wilson, Flavor Flav, and a beautiful woman named Yoko, Brubaker's brilliant fiction is like listening to your favorite album on vinyl: deeply moving and very, very smart."--Brandon Hobson

188 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2014

Reviews

[Zack]

I don't know exactly how autobiographical this one is, but it opens and closes as a memoir by an old man named James Brubaker who's lost his wife, Karen. There is either a subtle time travel motif embedded somewhere (besides the one about Flavor Flav don't miss it) or Amazon needs to update its James Brubaker author pic, which makes him look like he's in his thirties or forties. My editorial mind kept finding little flaws with it, not the kinds of mistakes I'd "never make" but things I'd tried and learned better than in my own opinion. But I have a lot of good books ready to start, and I kept going until I was finished with this one. So all my readerly-writerly self-talking wasn't enough to overrule all the good points of a narrative based in this culture's permeation with rock and roll, and Brubaker's use of that launchpad to pay tribute to his lost love.

[in8]

https://5cense.com/23/1102.htm

[Mitchell Duperree]

James Brubaker’s Liner Notes reads like an experimental piece of art pop. The experience of stumbling upon this collection feels like discovering a brilliant concept album hidden on a dusty 45 in my parents’ garage. Individually, each story delves into a different way music and art affects our lives. For many of Brubaker’s characters, music is a means of survival. In “An Introduction to the Deluxe Edition…” two widowers bond over a never released album and swap philosophies about life and death in the process; while in “Four Walls Won’t Hold You,” a young boy is able to escape the turmoil of his abusive home life by becoming The Prince of Pop. These characters are transported outside themselves through music—whether by struggling to understand the mind of a reclusive genius musician or just moonwalking until the room itself disappears. Michael Jackson isn’t the only pop culture icon to make an appearance in this collection. “Brian Wilson and the Universe” explores the existentialism of the Beach Boys front man’s songwriting and Phil Spector’s inner darkness is acted out in five movie scenes in “700 Stitches.” Bob Dylan’s famous Stratocaster even makes a humble appearance, rotting away in what is assumed to be a forgotten Hard Rock Café in “The People’s Musical Heritage Museum.” These stories are smart. Brubaker digs into the mythos of the artist as well as how we create our identities. Standouts in this arena are “Oh Yoko” and “Flavor Flav Travels Through Time,” the first a hilarious examination of finding oneself after the end of a relationship, the second a surprisingly affecting journey of a man who rewrites his timeline in order to avoid being pigeonholed as a “hype man.” Time plays an important role in many of Brubaker’s stories—what is lost to time, our attempts to hold on to the past, the devastating effects of nostalgia. In “Of Muscle Memory,” a dedicated jazz musician tries to preserve his friend’s memories of his past. In “How We Did Not Become Extinct,” humankind must relearn the joy of creating new things after a “cloud generation” becomes satisfied reveling in the past. The pleasure of creation resurfaces in most of the other stories at some point, most notably in “A Speech On the Occasion…” and “The People’s Musical Heritage Museum.” In “A Speech On the Creation,” a foundation uses computers to discover the last few remaining original melodies (against the wishes of the foundation’s creator). In “The People’s Musical Heritage Museum,” a former painter adjusts to his new job as a museum curator. He is expected to compile the last remaining musical relics from a time before computers controlled art; however, he discovers the beauty of original music and is forced to question the society in which he lives. Obviously, many of Brubaker’s stories address the intersection of technology and the arts. None of these stories come across as fatalistic or finger wagging in tone, though. Instead, Brubaker examines how humankind’s relationship with music has changed and how it will continue to change. These stories are not didactic little parables. Despite embracing surrealist tendencies and bizarre premises, these stories are remarkably human. You will never look at the plight of Flavor Flav the same way again (or watch Jurassic Park the same way again, for that matter). In every story in Liner Notes, the quiet static in between the noise gets a closer look. The obsession that drives artists to create gets a closer look. And, after taking this journey, I feel changed.

[Jimmy Johnson]

I thought his collection of short stories were hilarious. The style he uses is very unique and keeps the reader engaged the whole time.

[Tatiana]

I'm always amazing by Brubaker's ability to be funny and heart-rending at the same time. Liner Notes is no exception.