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INCOMPLETE by Joel David Levin

INCOMPLETE

by Joel David Levin

Pub Date: Aug. 28th, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-76635-5
Publisher: Self

In Levin’s novel, a rock star–turned–English teacher is thrust back into his musical past.

In the opening pages, narrator Brian Smith recounts his modest success with the punk band Call Field, which had a minor hit in the year 2000, and how he later became a high school teacher. He details his suburban lifestyle and the demanding nature of his job; introduces Veronica Jones, his music- and dentistry-inclined teaching assistant; describes his home office, decked out with rock memorabilia; and relates his complex, abiding love for the Beach Boys. As he teaches Veronica to write efficiently, he reveals his past, and readers learn that his father named him after Beach Boys songwriter Brian Wilson and taught him to play music. He tells of opening up to his dad about his difficulties in life when he was a teenager, including the fact that Serena Rios, his first crush, dumped him. He also recalls the story of when he, along with Serena’s new beau, Steve Öken, and other students auditioned songs for a high school graduation performance, and how later, at UCLA, he met guitarist Noelani Mele’kauwela Aukake’ho’opae, with whom he fell deeply in love. Several pages of this novel are adorned with black-and-white photos that highlight key objects in the tale, such as Brian’s Beach Boys memorabilia, and this helps to bring him to life as a character. Levin also peppers the text with abundant 1970s and ’80s pop-culture references—particularly regarding various bands, which music history buffs will appreciate. However, it’s the nonmusical aspects of Brian’s life—his family history and, in particular, his high school and college romances—that readers are likely to find to be the most relatable and engaging parts of the novel.

An engrossing rock-’n’-roll bildungsroman.