A
Literary Saloon
&
Site of Review.

Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.

Contents:

Main

the Best

the Rest

Review Index

Links

to e-mail us:

the complete review - fiction

Flesh Guitar

by
Geoff Nicholson

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

- Return to top of the page -

Our Assessment:

B- : for guitar aficionados, ok, but not up to his usual level

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Nicholson doesn't just give you what you want, he gives you what you never even knew existed." - Lilian Pizzichini, The Independent
  
  
• "Flesh Guitar, though always clever, is seldom fun." - Anthony Bourdain, The New York Times
  
  
• "Nicholson has dry cleverness to burn, enough to make even this formless heap of a novel mildly entertaining." - Stephanie Zacharach, Salon

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

- Return to top of the page -

The complete review's Review:

       We are great Nicholson fans. He is a clever, witty, imaginative writer. He has a weak spot: guitars and guitar players. His 1991 book Big Noises, a survey of rock guitar in the 1990's, was a warning of what might come. With Flesh Guitar he has written his great guitar and rock 'n roll novel. Except that it is not so great.
       The story of the brilliant guitar player Jenny Slade, related as a series of vignettes from her career, is amusing enough. Certainly the flesh guitar of the title is an impressive creation, and Nicholson does heap on lots of clever, guitar-themed ideas. The difficulty is that he goes about it a bit lazily, not fleshing out his characters, leaving his descriptions perfunctory. It is a fairly short book, and it is full of good ideas, but it needs more meat to it. A fun, quick read, it lacks the substance we are used to from Nicholson.

- Return to top of the page -

Links:

• The Overlook Press publicity page
• Profile in The Independent

• Kirkus Reviews
• The Modern Novel
• The New York Times Book Review
• Publishers Weekly
• Salon

• The complete review's Geoff Nicholson page.
• Official site

• Bedlam Burning
• Big Noises
• Bleeding London
• The City under the Skin
• The Errol Flynn Novel
• Everything and More
• Female Ruins
• The Food Chain
• Footsucker
• Gravity's Volkswagen
• The Hollywood Dodo
• Hunters and Gatherers
• The Knot Garden
• The Lost Art of Walking
• The Miranda
• Sex Collectors
• Still Life with Volkswagens
• Street Sleeper
• What we did on our Holidays

• See Index of Contemporary British fiction

- Return to top of the page -

About the Author:

       English author Geoff Nicholson, born in Sheffield in 1953, has written a flurry of novels. He lives in London and New York.

- Return to top of the page -

© 1999-2021 the complete review

Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links