Reviews and Praise
THE ENDLESS REFRAIN
An “impassioned manifesto. . .Readers will be captivated by Rowell’s fine-grained music criticism and sharp analysis of the culture industry, rendered in evocative prose (the crowd at a Journey concert “didn’t sing ‘Born and raised in South Detroit’ like it was a lyric... but screamed it the way you might scream to a firefighter that your baby is still in your burning house”). The result is a provocative and entertaining critique of the music industry.
—Publishers Weekly
A musical road trip with that friend who knows just about everything and has control of the radio. If Rowell didn’t write with such energy and humor, you might forget how depressing it is that that so many choose Bananarama over Beyoncé. David Rowell is the cultural anthropologist we need in a society that’s forgetting how to listen.
—Geoff Edgers, author of Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song that Changed American Music Forever
I have long lived with the notion that nostalgia is the kiss of death for all great art. This is especially true of rock 'n' roll, which I maintain is the most immediate, vital, and alive of all of our art forms. Why then do so many listeners remain stuck with the playlists of their past? David Rowell asks that question and sounds the alarm for what it portends for the future of popular music, ending up with another important idea about the best way to live and enjoy your life: Be here now.
—Jim DeRogatis, author of Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America's Greatest Rock Critic
"David Rowell’s quest to examine the relationship that some Americans have with popular music today lands him in a kind of cultural Fun House. A wild ride fueled by deft reporting, genuine curiosity, and Rowell's irrepressible belief in the power of music to transform our lives.
—Howard Fishman, author of To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse
“Thought-provoking”
—Library Journal
WHEREVER THE SOUND TAKES YOU
“Rowell’s book is a peerless seminar in long-form journalism; the fellow writer or aspirant critic can only marvel at his command of his métier. Each story begins with Rowell setting a hook in the reader as deftly as a fisherman. An indelible lead is inevitably followed by a crafty switch in perspective and a judicious sprinkling of historical context, eventually winding up with a wry, often poignant denouement. All of this is delivered in prose
as clear and lively as good conversation. Rowell treats his subjects seriously, as people worthy of having their stories told, which endows them with dignity—and there is nothing poignant in quite the same way as a misfit being treated with dignity. Beneath Rowell’s cool journalistic facade beats the heart of a romantic. . ."
—The Washington Post
A wide-ranging exploration of the hold that music has on so many of us. . . By focusing so narrowly—e.g., on the "hang," an obscure, expensive instrument in Switzerland, the popular rise and decline of the Hammond organ, or the cult appeal of musical aggression known as "grindcore"—Rowell offers revelations that seem universal, if often ineffable. . . . Every story concerns music, but the heart of each is people—the ones who make the music or the instruments and the ones whose lives depend on it. Readers who have had any sort of musical passion should find these stories compelling.” READ MORE
— Kirkus Reviews
“David Rowell is the kind of music fan that scares us musicians. He really gets it, maybe even more than we do. His adventures in music ignite that fascination with ordered sound and the strange people who produce it. Musical instruments too are strange objects. They have a glow about them that derives from the emotional magic of the sounds that they can make. While any inanimate object resonates when struck, some things ring with more charisma than others. Rowell's curations of these special objects and the gifted individuals with the magic power of Excalibur to pull music from them are both travelogues and portraits of some very colorful people."
— Stewart Copeland, Grammy Award-winning drummer for The Police
“In a day when music is respected only if it tops the charts, gets the most clicks, or makes it to number one on “American Idol,” it’s refreshing to read of music as a human pursuit that can be found anywhere and everywhere. Wherever the Sound Takes You celebrates the middle class of the music-making scene—solitary songwriters and instrument creators, bands that once were stars, and musicians who never were. Yet the passion for musical expression resides in them all, and their stories deserve telling. Rowell does just that, imbuing them equally with respect and dignity.”
— Ashley Kahn, author of A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album
“Captivating … Absorbing”
— Library Journal
Too often, reading about people performing music is as unrewarding as reading about people performing sex. Readers generally would prefer to be engaging in the act themselves. Most authors simply cannot capture and convey the passion that makes such acts so vital. David Rowell’s Wherever the Sound Takes You is a happy exception. READ MORE
— Washington Independent Review of Books
THE TRAIN OF SMALL MERCIES
Among several impressive debut novels I’ve read in recent years, David Rowell’s is a hands-down standout; in fact, it’s hard to believe this book is his first…Rowell holds the reader in a state of wonder and suspense through half a dozen tales that come together gorgeously as one. The Train of Small Mercies shows us how the tiniest private moments are often inextricable from the most monumental public events, how collectively they define nothing less than history itself. What a generous and versatile imagination Rowell has; I can’t wait to see what he does next.
—Julia Glass
“David Rowell . . . has created nothing less than a portrait of America itself.”
—Ann Patchett
“What a tapestry, so evocative!”
—Elizabeth Strout
“The Train of Small Mercies moves with the graceful inexorability of time itself, that breathing, beating force that links us all. The men and women who emerge in these pages—black and white, young and old—perfectly illuminate their volatile historical moment; Rowell’s literary magic is the way he makes that moment resonate with our own.”
—Julie Orringer
“The Train of Small Mercies is a novel of transcendent literary vision, one that conveys with brilliance and compassion the unattended lives and moments that shoulder history’s freight. Startling in its breadth, arresting in its depth of feeling.”
—Wells Tower
“The Train of Small Mercies is a compelling first novel that builds emotional momentum as the hours pass. . . In his first novel, Rowell weaves the fictionalized stories of several into a drama of cumulative force.”
—The Associated Press
“Rowell is as interested in depicting the unraveling culture as he is in reclaiming the history of Kennedy’s assassination, but real events are crisply and memorably delivered. . .This is a novel with its own panoramic vision of the optimism and hope engendered by Kennedy’s run for the presidency, and of the deep, confused grief unloosed by his slaying.”
—The Washington Post
Photo by Mr Cup / Fabien Barral on Unsplash