POET OF THE WRONG GENERATION by LONNIE OSTROW

3 November, 2016

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Our Review

“No one can rationalize why something so positively beautiful comes from the depths of our pain. I guess that’s what classifies art and artists among life’s ironies…..there would never be a love song if folks were always happy.”

What a soulful emotional and beautiful story! Music themed romances are one of our favourites, though all too often we find the focus weighs heavily on the sex and romance factor of the story, missing the all-important music ‘feel‘ we crave from this theme. As much as we love romance, we equally hunger the musical aspect; we want to live in the moment, breathe in the enthusiasm and experience the inspiration and the atmosphere behind the scenes.

And on that note, we can declare Lonnie Ostrow’s Poet of a Wrong Generation, a fictional love story between a rock star and the woman who would always claim his heart, set in New York and peppered with real events that shaped our lives delivered with a musical landscape that spoke to our hearts and it was everything we could possibly desire. A real, raw, compelling and heartbreakingly emotional story that at times read like a memoir.

“Perfection is a myth. It just doesn’t exist, unless we accept each other for who we are and what we’ve been through. Love and understanding, it’s the closest we’ll come to reaching it.”

If you’ve ever been inspired by a love song, if a songwriter’s words have ever spoken directly to you, if you’ve ever felt so overcome with emotion watching your favourite singer/band bringing their words to life in concert, then THIS story is for you. Lonnie Ostrow has spectacularly, truthfully, intensely and vividly captured the heart and soul of a musician with his beautiful words and stunning writing.

‘For one breathtaking moment, two tortured, wandering souls had rediscovered a common spiritual bond.’

If you’re looking for sex, drugs and rock and roll romance with a self-destructive hero you won’t find it here but what you will experience is a soulful story of a love that refused to die, of a sensitive, talented man whose meteoric rise to fame was inspired by pain, heartbreak and lost love and for whom, fame would come at a price.

It’s August 1991 when we meet 22 year old Johnny Elias; a sensitive, poetic young man whose sole existence revolves around his girlfriend Megan. Johnny, together with Megan, his best friend Andy and Andy’s girlfriend, Jacqui, are enjoying the Paul Simons free concert in Central Park. They have a life full of endless possibilities before them, yet neither could foresee the twist their lives would take after that day, both good and bad.

“Remember: life isn’t calculated in years and days. It’s measured in moments.”

After being hurt and betrayed by Megan following a miscommunication, theirs would be a break up which would see Johnny pen some of the most beautifully evocative, relevant and wistful songs that would launch his career into stratospheric proportions, with critics declaring him the ‘Dylan of his generation.’ In a market swamped with techno and nonsense pop songs, Johnny struck a chord with his meaningful lyrics. Having been signed by Highpeak records, Johnny quickly rose to fame until a bitter cruel manipulation saw him fighting for survival in the fickle music scene.

“The boy you walked away from – the one scribbling in a poetry notebook – he’s become a man with this crazy career.”

Poet of the Wrong Generation at its heart is Johnny’s story. Despite having everything he could want materially, all Johnny craved was stability, love and someone to share in his success. It’s a story of strength, friendship loyalty and love, of a man who never lost sight of who he was, who retained his dignity in the face of continual betrayal. One betrayal would see him rise above and pour his heart out in lyrics, another would shatter his confidence, his world and his heart.

“You were my support system. My reason to believe that life could actually mean something besides endless transition…”

We did find Megan irritating at first and wanted to shake some sense into her, though we knew her actions were not out malice, but merely a young girl still trying to find herself and assert her independence against her strong-willed, manipulative and cruel mother.

We devoured this book and everything about it felt so real… until the last 10% when sadly the story took a turn that just didn’t work for us. Whilst we can understand why the author introduced this drama, we felt it was delivered too late and was rather unnecessary. This turn of events felt like overkill, leaving us feeling a little flat in an otherwise honest, gut-wrenching and beautifully outstanding story.

The author has indicated he may pen a sequel and if that’s the case, we’ll be all over it because for 90% of this book we were completely swept up in this wistful, potent, captivating, hypnotic fictional memoir, loving every minute and expecting it to be a perfect 5 star read. Had it not been for the drama in the very last part of the book, it most definitely would have been because this book is very special. Now, this is our opinion and the events we alluded to probably won’t bother other readers as it did us.

Synopsis

“It’s not that I don’t love you, and my tears are yet to dry. But you can’t go back and forth forever and we’ve already said goodbye.”’

Through these words, a young poet unearths his musical soul while severing ties with the woman he loves after her stunning betrayal. Unknowingly, in writing this ballad of liberation, he will soon evolve as one of the fastest rising stars on the pop music landscape.

The year is 1991; the place, New York City. Here we meet Johnny Elias, a college student from Brooklyn with boundless adoration for two things in life: timeless popular music, and the heart of a sweet, complicated young woman who is clearly out of his league.

Megan Price not only is the object of Johnny’s affection, but also the only daughter of New York’s most powerful PR woman: the indomitable Katherine Price.

Projecting that her daughter’s boyfriend will never live up to the family standard, Katherine cleverly perpetrates a series of duplicitous schemes to rid Johnny from her high-class world. But in her callous disregard, she inadvertently sets him on a determined course to his improbable musical destiny – while sending her own daughter spiraling down a path of devastation.

Poet of the Wrong Generation tells the symmetrical story of a lovable underdog and his meteoric rise to stardom, his humiliating downfall and his unprecedented attempt to reclaim his place as the unlikely musical spokesman for his generation. At the heart of Poet is a tale of star-crossed lovers and their struggle with unforeseen success and disillusionment, in an attempt to rediscover lasting harmony.

Uniquely integrating a variety of original song compositions, Poet projects the epic clash between true contentment and the fable of stardom’s rewards; a nostalgic journey through the major events of the 1990s, with a cherished cast of characters and a stunningly unpredictable conclusion.

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One Comment:

29 December, 2016 at 4:57 am
Wendy said:

Absolutely adored this book. My favorite of 2016. There’s never been anything like this novel with the original song lyrics and the epic fable of celebrity and forbidden love.

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