For immediate release
Contact: Adam Gussow
Phone:
845-664-8602
Email:
asgussow@aol.com
Modern Blues Harmonica Presents Busker's Holiday
Modern Blues Harmonica is pleased to announce the publication of
Busker’s Holiday, a taut, sexy first novel about the summer busking
scene in Europe and a pair of wild-hearted young men who make a pitch
for fame and glory, finding a girl or two along the way.
Adam Gussow, the author, is an associate professor of English and
Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi. Gussow has published
three previous books on the blues, including Mister Satan’s Apprentice
(1998), an award-winning memoir about his years as a Harlem street
musician.
Set in the late 1980s, Busker’s Holiday is the story of McKay Chernoff, a
Columbia University grad student with a harmonica in his pocket and a
blues band in his background. Desolate and despairing after a
disastrous romantic breakup, McKay decides to fly off to Paris and
reinvent himself as a street performer.
What follows is an epic summer voyage into the busking life, propelled
by the mad exploits of Billy Lee Grant, a fearless young guitar shredder
whose Memphis-to-Mississippi pedigree and Dylanesque surrealism make
him, when he explodes into view, precisely the partner McKay has been
yearning for.
Burning like a latter-day Dean Moriarty, Bill goads McKay into a
sun-drenched, all-night bender, stoked by wine, women, mushrooms, and
trains, that careens down out of Avignon and across the French Riviera.
What happens next—in Florence, Solingen, Amsterdam, Paris—is a story of
purgatory, redemption, and love regained. Hope, in a word, as a modern
troubadour returns from his wanderings, reborn.
For more information on Busker’s Holiday and a photo of the author as a reckless young street performer, visit the website:
http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/buskers-holiday.html
# # #
About the author:
Adam Gussow, born in New York City and raised twenty-five miles upriver,
has been living in Oxford, Mississippi since 2002, where he teaches at
Ole Miss and performs with his current duo, The Blues Doctors. He is
best-known musically for his longtime partnership with guitarist
Sterling “Mr. Satan” Magee as the duo Satan and Adam. He has
contributed more than 500 blues harmonica teaching and performance
videos to YouTube—his debut music video, “Crossroads Blues,” has 700,000
views—and his website, ModernBluesHarmonica.com, is popular with
beginners and pros alike.
Gussow has published three previous books on the blues: Mister Satan’s
Apprentice: A Blues Memoir (1998); Seems Like Murder Here: Southern
Violence and the Blues Tradition (2002); and Journeyman’s Road: Modern
Blues Lives From Faulkner’s Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York (2007).
He has just completed a scholarly monograph entitled Beyond the
Crossroads: The Devil and the Blues Tradition.
# # #
Praise for Busker’s Holiday
“In Gussow’s…lively road novel, an American grad student spends a wild
few weeks as a street musician in Europe….a five-week odyssey, a wild,
jazzy tale that includes rollicking musical performances, running from
the cops, drunken debauchery, and a diverse array of colorful
characters…. Gussow’s tale is a fast-paced, enjoyable one, with the
harmonica blues angle putting a unique spin on the European trip
narrative. It is a nostalgic story but thankfully unsentimental, as
rigorous detail and descriptions bring the story to life in explosive
ways. McKay on the street in Paris drinking Heineken while playing
“Sweet Home Chicago” is certainly cool, yet Gussow outdoes himself with
the novel’s revolving cast of unique characters, whose crazy times and
back stories are endlessly entertaining. The novel is about the trip of a
lifetime, going to Europe to forget everything, but it’s also a story
of friendship, helped tremendously by Gussow’s ear for music and
dialogue. A strongly written, cool novel about being young, bluesy, and
free on a vagabond adventure in Europe.” –Kirkus Reviews
“Why would anyone be surprised that Adam Gussow had such a fantastic
novel in him? For decades, his impeccable harp-playing has demonstrated
the depth of his soul. His scholarly writing offers keen insight into
all manner of American aesthetics. That he has rounded up such a roguish
cast of characters and unleashed them abroad for shenanigans of the
best kind only confirms the range of his talents.”--Tom Williams, author
of Among the Wild Mulattos & Other Tales and Don’t Start Me Talkin’
"Busker's Holiday is strung between espressos and bluesy harmonica
poetry, a linguistic tour-de-force dancing like rain drops on the Paris
streets."-- Paul Maher, Jr., author of Kerouac: The Definitive Biography
and Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac's On
the Road
“Adam Gussow writes like he plays the harmonica: with great precision
and fluidity, and with a flawless ear for melody. With Busker’s Holiday,
he takes the reader with on an emotional and musical journey from the
Ivory Tower of US academia to the dirty, sexy and no-holds-barred
streets of late 1980s Europe. It’s an exciting and fast-paced novel
that not only keeps you enthralled, but (speaking as a professional
musician and former busker myself) really rings true. Gussow gets it
right. He evokes the transformative power of the blues in a way few are
able to do. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, Dante, Kerouac, Hemingway, Robert
Johnson and Muddy Waters all in one short novel. Remarkable!”—Ron
Sunshine, New York bandleader
“A rocking guttersnipe’s lament across Europe, one that stings and
swings. A lively coming-of-age tale, inspired by Kerouac and Magic
Dick.”—R. J. Smith, author of The One: The Life and Music of James
Brown
Book facts:
Busker’s Holiday
Publisher: Modern Blues Harmonica / BookBaby
Print: ISBN 978-0996712408, $14.95, 216 pages, 5.5” x 8.5”, trade paperback
eBook: ISBN 978-0996712415, $5.99
Pub date: October 15, 2015
Print version vailable at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell’s Books.
E-book available at iBooks, Amazon (Kindle), B&N (Nook), Kobo, and more
