Dream On

Location Info

Map

The Booksmith

1644 Haight (at Belvedere)
San Francisco, CA 94117

Category: Retail

Region: Haight/ Fillmore

Photos

2 user reviews	Write A Review
Save to foursquare	0

Related Content

• College Guys Are Hotter Than College Girls, Newsweek says
  September 7, 2011
• Past and Future, Set in Stone
  January 11, 2012
• "Monstress": Lysley Tenorio Reads From His California Stories
  February 1, 2012
• The Bad Plus Melt Faces at Stanford's Dinkelspiel Auditorium
  August 3, 2011
• Dig Into Ancient Culture
  April 25, 2012

More About

• Don DeLillo
• Frank Portman
• Stanford University

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Whenever we hear about a new rock novel, we flinch, reliving the misery of Don DeLillo’s Great Jones Street anew — what the hell was he doing there? Forget the Great American Novel: The Great Rock Novel is the most elusive prize in letters. Although we firmly believe Frank Portman is destined to wear that crown at some future date (if he isn’t already, thanks to King Dork) in the interim we have “Lost Coast,” which might be the Great Rock Short Story That Takes Place in Present-Day San Francisco. “Lost Coast” hits all the right marks, with a music blogger at odds with a young, tortured singer-songwriter on the cusp of indie greatness. Author Will Boast gets the scene right — part of the story is set in Hyde Street Studios — as he should: He’s been part of it, playing with local bands such as Stringer Belle and Fox & Woman, among others. He also gets the writing right — emotion quietly reverberates in delicate scenes written with an easy hand, tension crackling on the low end (you see what we did there) — as he also should: Boast was a Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford. Jealous yet? How about now: Every other story in Power Ballads is about music, too, all kinds of music; radio crap-rock, jazz, country, polka, and DJ beats, and it won the Iowa Short Fiction Award. It’s a good thing nobody told Boast it’s too hard to write about music.
Mon., Sept. 19, 7:30 p.m., 2011