Lit Riffs Book

This was ordered from Amazon's sale table. Upon opening the package, I was horrified to see it was published by Mtv BOOKS. Is that an oxymoron, or what?

This is a mixed bag of short stories "inspired" by popular songs. Some are good, some are VERY good, and the rest will fade from memory faster than last year's music videos.

The best of the bunch took just the barest whiff of a song and turned it into good fiction.

Bad things happened when the authors tried to literally translate the lyrics into stories.

- A man named Paul travels to Graceland, taking along the child of his first marriage.

- A man named Bob shot the sheriff, but he claims it was in self defense.


Why, oh why, does no one ever care who shot the deputy?

I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. Not the greatest collection of short stories, but some were great (Graffiti Monk, Heroin King, and the Springsteen one).