Tom Lynch

Andy Greenwald's new endeavor, "Miss Misery," his first stab at fiction and his follow-up to "Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo," is an ode to disaffected, post-college twentysomethings, too nostalgic for the music they were obsessed with in high school and still confused about choices that will change the course of their lives. Greenwald, a senior contributing writer at Spin magazine, infuses musical references with Nick Hornby-like fervor but, thankfully, doesn't pound the reader over the head with his look-what-I-know awareness of the current indie scene. But in the middle of the book, a mix is made and described song-for-song--very hip and cool with Galaxie 500 and Spoon and the essential mix-tape throwback with some Fleetwood Mac.

His hero, David Gould, recently dumped and struggling to meet his deadline for his first novel, has a borderline unhealthy addiction to online journals and becomes somewhat obsessed with that of Cath Kennedy--online name "Miss Misery"--a 22-year-old who shares similar musical tastes. On the Internet, David invents a character, a young DJ in New York City, the hipster David could be, who's on the town every night--when David's actually too busy writing this person's life to be out living it. "Miss Misery" is a fast, entertaining read, comical and complicated without compromising the romantic elements with endless twists and turns.

"The idea came for the book when I was procrastinating while writing `Nothing Feels Good,'" says Greenwald. "It was the summer of 2002, and it stayed with me. It was hard because no one wanted to take a chance on fiction from someone who didn't write it before. It was always a dream, but I never thought it was an attainable dream. In college I messed around in writing, took fiction, ripped off titles from Belle and Sebastian songs. I didn't think that I could write a novel, but I thought that I could write this novel, if that makes any sense."

It seems inevitable that a first-time writer--who makes a career in music journalism and criticism--would use his love and knowledge of music as a foundation for his novel. "That's definitely the way I approached things," Greenwald says. "I am very music-obsessed. When I met with my editor for lunch to talk about the book, the way I presented was I gave him three mix CDs, one for each of the main characters, just so he would understand that I knew these characters."

Perhaps most interesting is how Greenwald's characters use contemporary forms of communication, such as email, text-messaging, instant messaging and so forth. It's odd that, even as much as the world now depends on these technologies, they're still inconsistently expressed in novels. "It really kills me," Greenwald says of the absence. "It was a conscious decision to include those things. I wanted to write a book that used the way young people talk. My life wouldn't exist without instant-messaging or texts. I wanted to incorporate that without the `sci-fi' thing, and have the themes play with the idea of communication distance and identity."

Greenwald, who counts Haruki Murakami--his "idol"--and George Pelecanos as two of his favorite authors, saw a change in the book's themes while in the writing process. "When I came up with the plot, the doppleganger plot, I was interested in people's live journals, and how when you meet that person, in person, they're so different. When I sold the book, my life sort of split in the same way. I really came to see the emotional backbone of it, being in your mid-twenties and having to face reality."

Andy Greenwald reads from "Miss Misery" on January 19 at Barbara's Bookstore, 1100 West Lake, Oak Park, (708)848-9140, at 7:30pm. Free.

(2006-01-17)

Also by Tom Lynch

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After Elizabeth Elmore's first crack at penetrating the walls of the Midwest indie-punk scene, Sarge, turned in its colors in 1999, the singer and songwriter played several shows solo. But, as it turned out, she "wasn't very good at it."
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Tip of the Week
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Beam of Light
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Punk Rock Blues
(2005-11-15)

Divine Idea
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