Hymn California
Adam Gnade
DutchMoney

Meandering, sometimes seemingly directionless and I think told out of sequence, I am not sure really, because of the stream of consciousness voice given to the narrator, Hymn California comes across as an updated version of Kerouac and Bukowski, I suppose.

This book is about everyone I knew when we were in our early twenties. Some were in bands touring the country, getting in and out of relationships and dealing with life on the road. The rest of us wished we were along for the adventure. What you found out later from your friends who were on the road or by reading this book, whether they like to admit it or not, something kept drawing them home from the road.

Adam Gnade, who I think at the time was touring with his sometimes band Confederate Yankees, gives us what I am guessing is a sometimes fictionalized biography of what his life was like then. I admit that when I first started reading this the stream of consciousness way that the book is narrated almost lost me. I sat it down a couple of times thinking I was done with it, but every time I picked it back up and once I read enough to get into the pace and the stop start and nature of the book, I ended up thinking it was a good read.

If you have heard Adam Gnade's solo album "Run, Hide, Retreat, Surrender" then you know exactly how his book will read, because it is just like his music it drifts and it rambles, but if you really listen, you hear a decent story. If you read his book it does the same thing.

Gnade gets bonus points because one scene in the book happens in my very one Springfield, Illinois at a show, if it is real, I must have been at, but don't remember.

You can download pdfs of the book in sections, with a podcast of accompanying music from his website: http://adamgnade.cashmusic.org/