Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction by David Hajdu

Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction Reviews

• 
  Blair

  An oral history of a fictional musician – so addictive I read it in a single night. It's something like
  Daisy Jones & The Six meets
  The Life and Death of Sophie Stark, but smarter and wittier than either. Also has a villain so palpably punchable, it's a miracle my Kindle is still intact.
  
  In the world of the book, Geffel was a hugely influential experimental pianist who rose to prominence in the late 1970s. Her impact was such that 'geffel' has become a verb (meaning 'to release pure emotion in a work of creative expression'). Now, however, she is absent, having been missing for decades, and we hear her story via family, friends, lovers, teachers, management and doctors. Adrianne's unique talent, we learn, is attributable to a form of synesthesia: she hears constant music in her mind, and it changes according to her mood. She's also the subject of hideous exploitation by those who see her gift as a way to make money.
  
  The author's background as a music critic undoubtedly contributes to the effectiveness of Adrianne Geffel as a satire. There are some very entertaining asides and cameos (like when Adrianne and Barb inadvertently invent the Walkman, or when Philip Glass comes to fix their toilet). It's equally satisfying as good old enjoyable fiction. I don't know what it is about stories told this way that's so engrossing, but I just couldn't put it down.
  
  I received an advance review copy of Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction from the publisher through
  Edelweiss.
  
  
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• 
  (Estonians in Toronto hiatus) Alan Teder

  Take a Walk on the Geffel Side
  Review of the W.W. Norton Company hardcover edition (September 2020)
  
  All the stars for this one. David Hajdu’s fictional non-fiction account of the life of musician Adrianne Geffel is set in the experimental avant-garde loft music world of New York City in the 1970’s and 1980’s and includes cameo appearances by real-life composers and musicians such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. The fictional pianist Geffel explodes onto this scene playing her emotionally charged music which she hears in her head constantly and which compels her to enact it on the keyboard. When she had been investigated in her early years for this condition the neurologists had described it a psychosynesthesia, a version of synesthesia that transfers thought into sound.
  
  That all may sound flighty and esoteric, but the main point of this book is that it is hugely funny and revealing about people and with its playful satire about the postmodern art world whether it is plastic or sound art. The anonymous biographer is reconstructing Geffel’s life by interviewing her family, friends and associates. Many of these interviewees reveal more about themselves than anything about Geffel in their self-serving answers to the writer’s questions.
  
  And in the end it is really a love story against all the odds. What can be better than that?
  
  While writing this review I discovered that
  an audiobook version has also been produced, which is narrated by veteran reader Hillary Huber (Elena Ferrante’s The Neapolitan Novels etc.). I’m already eager to “re-read” for that alone.
  
  To the best of my knowledge, this is Hajdu’s first novel, but I thoroughly enjoyed his non-fiction music biographies
  Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn (1996) and
  Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña (2001) in my pre-Goodreads reading days.
  
  Trivia and Links
  While reading Adrianne Geffel, I imagined her more experimental atonal music would sound like something by avant-garde jazz pianist Cecil Taylor. A time appropriate (1970s) recording of Cecil Taylor is
  Indent (1973).
  
  After I finished reading, I searched for more information on Adrianne Geffel and discovered that author Hajdu had curated
  an Adrianne Geffel playlist for the Large Hearted Boy blog, which actually included a piece by Cecil Taylor.
  
  Adrianne Geffel’s minimalist cover design got it into LitHub’s
  Top 10 Best Book Covers of September 2020 list.
• 
  Drew

  5+ out of 5.
  So much my kind of thing: an oral history of a musician who burst onto the scene in the late 70s/early 80s in New York, taking the avant-garde SoHo scene by storm. Adrianne suffers from a rare neurological condition that, essentially, makes her hear music ALL THE TIME -- and she's able to translate that music via piano. Hajdu compiles, sometimes wryly and sometimes honestly, stories about Geffel's brilliant rise and sudden disappearance, with all of the things you'd imagine might be found in such a tale: oblivious parents, childhood sweethearts, bloviating critics, and a pair of evil (almost, but crucially not QUITE cartoonishly so; Biran in particular is chilling) men who ultimately take everything Geffel has.
  It's a speedy read and it never really settles into what kind of book it wants to be -- the tone veers to the satirical sometimes without ever deciding if its going to live there -- but I loved it even for its rough edges.
• 
  Chelsea

  This was delightful, I adore “real” fiction, written as if it was real but about something invented. It brought memories of the layers of commentary about invented citations in House of Leaves, though this is a single layer of interviews. I admit I skimmed in parts (4 not 5) because I got the gist of the parody and satire being poked at the people who represent, dissect, and surround artists while also promoting themselves. I’m sure I missed some clever real world references to the music scenes of the time, but the core point of the book carried through. Well written hints among the unreliable interviewees were a real stroke of mastery, the author captured well the character of people in the world caught up in their own stories unreliably telling the stories of others.
  What a fun obscure single evening read to start my year with.
• 
  vicki honeyman

  Adrianne Geffel was a genius. Praised as the "Geyser of Grand Street" and the "Queen of Bleak Chic, " she was an artist, pianist and composer whose rare neurological condition enabled her to make music that was pure and unmediated emotional expression. I had to remind myself that this was a novel, not a true story . . . but what a hilarious and fascinating story! "Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn," and "Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña," biographer and music critic David Hajdu has created a totally believable fictional biography of a fictional star music artist. Geffel's life and story are revealed through the memories of those who knew her, inspired her, and exploited her: her parents, teachers, best friend, manager, critics, and lover. This must-read satire is a fun romp through the 1970/1980's avant-garde music scene in NYC and the despicable people who make up the music industry.
  
  
• 
  Steve

  I might have been disposed to like this book if it wasn't so disingenuous. A year and a half before this book was published, "Daisy Jones and the Six", by Taylor Jenkins Reid, was published. It was a story about a troubled female musician in the late 1960's and early 1970's, written in a biographical style and comprised of excerpts from interviews from various people. And the exact same thing can be said about "Adrianne Geffel". With the subject, time period, and format easily imitateds, all the author had to do was fill in the blanks. Shame on Norton for publishing this. If you want to read a good work of biographical fiction about a female musician, then skip this and read the real thing -- Daisy Jones.
• 
  Charlie

  A swing and a rather large miss from David Hadju on Adrianne Geffel, a fictional oral history of a mysterious, mercurial avant-garde musical icon of pre-Giuliani NYC. The idea is there, sure, and Hadju's prodigious output of nonfiction music writing suggests that he would have a strong grip on the historical knowledge to be able to develop this into something rather knowledgeable. The issue is that he has very little nuance in his character development, so none of these talking heads feel particularly textured or even varied-- they are all airheads of more or less insidious natures. It's fine to have such an obvious villain, the music industry is surely full of them, but there's just so little beyond the broad strokes of characters here. I was very disappointed by this! 1.5 stars.
• 
  Kathleen Hulser

  Quirky imaginative sendup
  
  Big Music takes a beating, with many lashes laid on backs of record label execs, agents and music critics. Musicologists fare no better as their academic interpretations fall thudding into the obscure pit where “tenure-documentation” prose lives. The marvelous descriptions of the faked composer Adrianne Geffel read like extracts from Rolling Stone. Hajdu’s produgy goes nuts when she hears music from outside because it disrupts the constant improvisations echoing in her head. Indeed, how ugly unwanted sound is, blotting out the beautiful music in our minds.
• 
  Lorri Steinbacher

  Prepub. Due out Sept 22, 2020. An interesting character study and a meditation on the way the commercial side of art and the can take something beautiful and unique and twist it without regard for the artist, particularly when the artist is one as fragile as Geffel. Also asks a lot of questions: What if your art is only considered valuable if it makes you miserable? Does happiness = bad art? Is exploitation inevitable when you try to monetize art? Recommended for fans of Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad or Reid's Daisy Jones and the Six.
• 
  Sharon Layburn

  This biography of the fictional musician Adrianne Geffel was a complete lark, and I adored it!
  Thanks to a rare neurological condition, Adrianne was gifted with an unusual musical talent at an early age. When, as a young woman, she truly came into her gift, the world worshiped her for it. And then destroyed her because of it.
  Witty, ridiculous, and vastly entertaining, this short novel was a unique delight.
  
  This ARC was provided by Norton, in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Allison Renner

  DNF. I was so excited to read this book because I loved Daisy Jones and the Six and The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes, but I couldn't get into this one. The writing was so formal and stilted that I didn't buy people were giving spoken interviews. Just a few pages in and I already couldn't tell Adrianne's parents apart because they sounded like the same stiff person. Gotta have more than that to make me commit to reading an entire book.
• 
  Helena Carvalho

  The concept of this book is quite unusual. In the begin I was really enjoy and to see how the story has unrolling ,but the history has advance without context. The story unfolds by the characters conversations. For me, it will be important to have some brief of the characters.
  The book is quite descriptive of things that does not matter. I quite dislike Brian character, he seems controlling and definitely a red flag guy.
• 
  Brian

  In this novel, we find out about a musical prodigy named Adrianne (Adry) who has gone missing. The book is told through a series of interviews that chronicles her life and her involvement with music. The book is very well written and engaging. The book successfully creates a compelling mystery that draws the reader in.
• 
  Lucy Leitner

  Solid, interesting premise with a bit of a boring execution. It's a fictional oral history, but the characters were all cliches. It was meant to be funny, but it came off as just picking fun at all of them. There were some funny parts, but most of the jokes didn't land for me.
• 
  Adrianne

  I could see this being turned into a movie, a la This is Spinal Tap.
• 
  Christopher Cariola

  Read this book within a few hours. It’s quirky and a humorous look at music autobiographies.
• 
  Gary Shapiro

  A funny novel about the music world. Highly enjoyable!
• 
  yalissa *·˚ ༘

  an odd one, to be sure. someone said “daisy jones and the six but smarter.” yes!