The Wonderkids are living the dream: sold-out concerts, screaming fans, TV shows, number-one hits. Unfortunately, it's because the lead singer, Blake Lear, made a deal-wild success in exchange for transforming the band into a children's entertainment act. Now the seats are packed with grade schoolers instead of cool hipsters, and the television appearances happen on Saturday morning. But hey, rock and roll has always been for the kids, right?
The money is good, and things go very right-until they go very wrong. The temptations of the road are many, and the Wonderkids are big kids, too. Narrated by a boy whom Blake adopts on a whim, who becomes the band's disciple, merch guy, amateur psychologist, and-eventually-damage control guru, Wonderkid is a delirious and surprisingly touching novel of the dangers of compromise, thwarted ambition, and fathers and sons, told with tremendous humor and energy.
"If Stace's latest novel, his fourth, rings true, it's because he is writing what he knows. For 25 years, he performed smart indie rock under the pseudonym John Wesley Harding . . . A great rock 'n' roll novel."
