The Life of Byron Jaynes

by James Howard Kunstler

This panoramic novel about a sixties rock and roll superstar, Byron Jaynes, is set against a vast sweep of the hippie cultural revolution and its clash with the political establishment of the day. Rick Sears is a former Rolling Stone staff writer living on a lake in a remote New Hampshire town. In a chance encounter, he discovers that the legendary Byron Jaynes, thought to have died in the early 1970s, actually lives in extreme seclusion in a nearby farmhouse. The two form a bond of friendship as Byron narrates his story-within-a-story about the tragic rise and fall of his career
This was James Howard Kunstler’s third novel, published in the early 1980s, some time before he became better known as a social critic and author of the non-fiction books acclaimed The Geography of Nowhere, The Long Emergency, and Too Much Magic. Kunstler himself was a Rolling Stone editor and staff-writer in the magazine’s then-home office in San Francisco in 1974-75.

1 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

James Howard Kunstler (born 1948) is an American author, social critic, and blogger who is perhaps best known for his book The Geography of Nowhere, a history of suburbia and urban development in the United States. He is prominently featured in the peak oil documentary, The End of Suburbia, widely circulated on the internet. In his most recent non-fiction book, The Long Emergency (2005), he argues that declining oil production is likely to result in the end of industrialized society and force Americans to live in localized, agrarian communities.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having just finished a book on the Rolling Stones (see Blown Away), I immediately drew a connection between Byron Jaynes and Brian Jones ... Then with Bob Dylan re motorcycle accident ... and of course, as perhaps Kunstler meant more directly, with Jim Morrison. But Byron was probably a conflation of all of them and more. It all makes me very relieved that my very talented son left rock 'n roll for the theatre.


Anyway, Kunstler had written a good story with several avenues of interest, although I - cynic to the end - would have preferred a different ending.