Chronicles by Bob Dylan

The first volume of Bob Dylan's recollections is an interesting read.  He names a lot of names, some well-known in relation to his career, others, less so; still more, forgotten. I had hoped it would be more linear but it skips around from early Dylan as reluctant Messiah to late/current Dylan as elder statesman then back a bit.

He paints a picture of America, and New York City, especially, that is of a different era; a world that was bigger and smaller at the same time.  A slower world that relied on paying your dues in coffeehouses and, unlike today's American Idol-imposed instant fame, a leg up from record industry men. 

That said, his way of describing things, a way that might be described as Dylanesque were it someone else's memoir, gets caught in a certain rhythm and that certain rhythm got caught in my ear.  If you've heard his radio show on Sirius/XM, it's actually kind of fun in short bursts but, over the course of several hundred pages, I found it tiring. Still, I kept reading because it's Bob Freakin' Dylan.  The man, his music, and his mystique all made history and knowing your history is easily overlooked these days. 

The Messiah of Morris Avenue by Tony Hendra

Hendra, a founder of National Lampoon and an actor, perhaps best-known as Ian Faith, Spinal Tap’s beleaguered manager, wrote Father Joe, a controversial memoir that was admired by critics and readers last year but hailed as horseshit by his daughter who claims he sexually abused her. (Hendra refutes the charges.) This is his first go at fiction and it's not a bad start.

The idea: in the not too distant future, the Messiah returns to an America that has allowed its arch conservative leadership to let the Bible mix so freely with the ship of state that the US is little more than a painfully uptight, fundamentalist Christian theocracy where heresy is an actual crime on the books. (I suppose some might embrace this vision of America as heaven and others as absolute hell. That's for others to wrestle with.) A young Hispanic man and a very motley crew of followers start to try to spread the word and, naturally, all hell breaks loose. I thought it was reminiscent of Richard Bach’s Illusions but a little less heavy-handed and the narrator, a down and out journo had a good voice. Tolstoy, it ain’t--the villain was a bit on the cartoon-y side and it's obvious where Hendra sits on the political fence. Still, an enjoyable, light read with some insightful social commentary about where we may be headed if the Democrats don't learn to fundraise more effectively.