Brendan Gillen’s debut novel follows a trio of musicians trying to survive in New York City. Static explores the sacrifices artists make, the realities of who makes it big and who doesn’t, and the messy but sometimes magical process of collaborative creation. The novel is told from the point of view of Paul, who is barely making ends meet. Yet he’s unwilling to give up his dreams of creating art and return to a corporate job. Through him, we come to know the others in his orbit: his bandmates Bunky and Eloise, his co-workers at the record store, old friends, and family members.
When we first meet Paul, he’s stealing his lunch from the local convenience store with an ease indicating this isn’t his first time. Paul left Ohio, where he grew up with his working-class parents, in hopes of making it big in the New York City music scene. Without his parents’ support, he doesn’t make enough money from gigs or his record store job to survive. Paul’s stealing is an escalating thread continuing throughout the book. He soon starts stealing from his workplace, the small indie record store where he has a job because his friend vouched for him. Then from his best friend and bandmate Bunky’s family. He even uses music samples his friends have created without explicit permission. He justifies all this as the only way to not give up on his dreams and later to help his parents, who he learns have lost their life savings. Gillen doesn’t let Paul off easy though. He eventually faces the consequence, but it is hard to say if he’d do anything differently or if he entirely feels the weight of his betrayals.
The best books I’ve read this year have leaned into difficult, sometimes unlikable characters. Gillen does this with all his characters in Static—he unapologetically presents people trying to survive, which often means making some bad choices. At times there is nothing to be learned except that people do selfish things, even to friends and family, particularly when they feel trapped. You’re never sure, with Gillen’s characters, if they will change when confronted about their bad behavior. But there is an acceptance saying: this is what I’m like, what my friend or family member is like, and sometimes we will love each other, and sometimes we will hate each other. Gillen places no judgment on his characters, flawed as they are, navigating complex relationships, carrying baggage from the past, and wondering when life will come together for them. Holding on to your dreams can be a grind—and that is what Gillen sets us off into in Static—both the beauty and hardness of trying to make the dream a reality.
The beauty in this book is in the perfectly captured vibe of living in a big city, and Gillen’s words have a rhythm, especially when he’s talking about making music. He manages to convey the shape and form of the music Paul, and his bandmates are making. Even though you are just reading words on a page, you get the audible sense of the music they are creating:
He pressed play and the beat gurgled to life. The slurry intro of Sara’s voice: It’s me. The steady, open pulse of the lilting piano. The space. He could sense Bunky watching him, skepticism etched on his face. Waiting for the right moment to pull the plug, end it once and for all. The drums kicked in—drums engineered to rattle trunks and clubs—and with them, Sara’s dismembered violin. Bunky focused his attention on his bass and negotiated the strings for the right chords.
What Gillen also does well is illuminate the creative process of making music, especially in a band where artists must work cohesively with each other:
Eloise began to play jangly chords and stepped closer to her mic stand. She closed her eyes, nodded her head, and began to test vocal melodies. […]And on they went, riffing and trading couplets. Occasionally, Paul laid in some scratches, but mostly he observed, watching a beat he had constructed out of loneliness and desperation bloom into something real. When the track faded out, they were quiet. Unsure, perhaps, about whether to trust the magic they’d managed to conjure. That it might escape them, vanish into the stuffy atmosphere of the room.
Brendan Gillen’s Static captures New York City life, the struggle of pursuing artistic endeavors, and the complexity of relationships when your life feels unfulfilled. Gillen gives a sharp view of the music industry and remarkably the music his characters are creating, detailed on the page, can be heard by us. Reading this novel will be like hearing a fun, new song for the first time, taking you by surprise with its layers and depth the longer you listen.
Static, by Brendan Gillen. Athens, Greece: Vine Leaves Press, July 2024. 292 pages. $17.99, paper.
Emily Webber has published fiction, essays, and reviews in the Ploughshares Blog, The Writer, Five Points, Necessary Fiction, Hippocampus, and elsewhere. Read more at emilyannwebber.com.
Check out HFR’s book catalog, publicity list, submission manager, and buy merch from our Spring store. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube. Disclosure: HFR is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Sales from Bookshop.org help support independent bookstores and small presses.
Heavy Feather Review 