Is Rock Dead? by Kevin J.H. Dettmar (Routledge paperback). “I’m conscious of having lured you here under false pretenses,” the writer begins in the preface to this narrative on the unending pronouncements of the death of rock & roll. Dettmar, an English professor at Southern Illinois University, embarked on this book after a critic attacked one of his favorite bands, Radiohead. The clamorous cry that “rock is dead” has amplified over the years, normally after major events — Dylan going electric, Hendrix’s death, the murder of John Lennon, Kurt Cobain’s suicide and the rise of hip-hop, among others. Dettmar explores many of these events, but he is not interested in finding an answer to the question posed in the title, but rather he analyzes and dissects numerous critics and their writings on rock’s death. The result is a reference book for vinyl junkies and iPod junkies that reads at the same breakneck speed with which rock morphs and evolves. People have written off rock & roll from the 1950s to the present. Dettmar ruminates with fine prose and wit that the “death of rock” is ultimately about change and growth. “Declaring rock dead enables rock to go on,” he writes. Indeed. — Samir Shukla
The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis (Little, Brown hardback). Kathryn Davis has assembled a variety of plain and unusual characters in a novel that reads more like a series of vignettes intertwined with sketches of creationism and evolution. The citizens of Varennes go about their lives connected in the regular ways through family, work and community, until a climactic event at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church changes everything on Pentacost– the day “the spirit came down and spoke.” Perhaps no one can agree on what was said, but all know their lives are changed forever. Davis casts her plot lines on the surface of Black Lake, and many are left there to be reeled in at the discretion of the reader, who may find her deliberately sparse accounts either refreshingly complex or bafflingly frustrating. This book is well suited for the reader who likes to bring their imagination and interpretation to the story. Those who prefer a fully explained work with a neatly gift wrapped ending will surely be disappointed, but it provides a challenging adventure for anyone willing to brave it with an open mind. — Melanie Stewart
This article appears in Feb 8-14, 2006.
