Novel about a guitar playing teen in the '70s

[DoryDavis]

Brutality meets rock-n-roll redemption when the lives of two buddies on the social fringes of a corrupt 1970s Cincinnati high school collide with violent teachers, predatorial jocks…and comically anxious encounters with the opposite sex.

Obsessed with The Who, David Bachmann and Todd Brill form a band and deliver an incendiary guitar-windmilling performance at the Burr Oak High last-day-of-school talent show, vaulting their social status.

But tragedy awaits as the best friends are destined to confront both the horrific Beverly Hills Supper Club fire, and two short years later the deadly Who concert stampede. All leading to a brush with madness, and a shocking but ultimately revivifying look beyond the veil.

Their sanity is tested but never their loyalty in this harrowing twist on the love-lost/coming-of-age story, in a world of ghosts where music is their only salvation.

An unflinching taboo-busting look into '70s midwest teen life, Cincinnati Supernova is at once gut-wrenching, hilarious, absurd, haunted, and ultimately poignant. This sprawling novel unfolds in the shadow of sobering historical events. https://www.amazon.com/Cincinnati-Su...s%2C103&sr=8-1

[Lkristians]

This has been mentioned in the "What are you reading" thread in Open Mic. I picked up on it and loved it! Thanks for posting here. A terrific and entertaining read.

[upsidedown]

Originally Posted by Lkristians

This has been mentioned in the "What are you reading" thread in Open Mic. I picked up on it and loved it! Thanks for posting here. A terrific and entertaining read.

A co-written novel?

[DoryDavis]

Originally Posted by upsidedown

A co-written novel?

This is off the website:

Stan Bricke is an award-winning independent filmmaker who began his career with a giant consumer goods company in the Midwest, where he spent two decades on staff as a film director/writer.

Co-writer Sal Forlenza is a veteran of the Los Angeles Ad Agency scene, where he was awarded the prestigious One Show Pencil. As a 30+ year member of the Screen Actors Guild, his chapter reads at book signings are electric.

[DoryDavis]

The two authors have also written a novel called Executive Breakfast. It is not about music, though touches on it. It's more about a corporate bottom-feeder video director inspired by the films of Kubrick. With crazy romances and tense corporate broadcasts thrown in. Here is the description:
What do a nervous-stomached corporate video director, a childlike business savant CEO, a brainless ad agency, a lovely video editor given to wanton double entendre, strip poker, Joan of Arc, Stanley Kubrick and Montana Big Sky mysticism all have in common? EXECUTIVE BREAKFAST!

In the pre-Internet ‘90s, corporate bottom feeder Lee Chase is searching for purpose in his job as an on-staff TV director for a huge Fortune 500 consumer products company in the midwest.

His fortunes take a riotous twist when the paternal and well-loved CEO is suddenly replaced by a larger-than-life, idiosyncratic, business-savant Dutchman whose grasp of English is as tenuous as his media savvy.

Lee shepherds the homesick and somewhat childlike Mr. Van der Berg through his first-day-on-the-job TV appearances, successfully navigating minefields of employee hostility and Wall Street resistance; in the process they become unlikely friends.

Under the gun, with his department facing an imminent outsourcing, Lee’s final assignment is to write and direct a test commercial for a new-to-the-market product; ‘Heavenly Hearth’ stick-on wallpaper. His musically driven approach is creative and risky, but it works, and focus group numbers rocket off the charts.

Mr. Van der Berg sees the spot, loves it, and Lee is suddenly vaulted into the executive suites, as head of Marketing.

With a lifetime of wealth, comfort and prestige in his grasp, Lee ultimately trades his skyscraper vocation for a Big Sky avocation – moving to Montana where the love of his life lies waiting.

Comic, absurd, suspenseful, and in the end poignant, EXECUTIVE BREAKFAST is a Spinal Tap meets How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying take on the skullduggery of board room politics and NYC ad agency shenanigans, with an informed look into the often tense, always chaotic behind-the-scenes workings of a corporate television studio.https://www.amazon.com/EXECUTIVE-BRE...=UTF8&qid=&sr=