Ten-year-old Theo lives with his grandfather and a minder in a vast, decrepit Long Island mansion said to have inspired 'The Great Gatsby'. His English father, a world famous rock musician, spends most of the year away on tour. His mother, beautiful and fragile, drifts in and out of his life amid bouts of rehab. Alone for much of the time, Theo takes refuge in his attic bedroom, among his collection of live butterfly pupas and the tales of piratical adventure that fire his imagination. Then, a fax arrives: 'Reef the mainsail.' It seems Theo's father is coming home to record a new album, and he's planning to stay the whole summer. Along with the rest of the band, managers, PR people, agents, and countless hangers-on good, bad and downright ugly . . . Over two life-changing days, Theo captures the mind and voice of a ten year- old boy at the far edge of innocence. At once a tender coming-of-age story and an exploration of the radioactive effects of the rich and famous on those who love them, it peels away the image to look into the dark heart of fame and fortune. AUTHOR: Ed Taylor teaches literature and writing at Buffalo State College. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and his story "Grendel" was selected as a "Notable Read" in Dave Eggers's anthology Best American Non-required Reading. His work appears in a variety of U.S. and U.K. periodicals and anthologies. REVIEWS: 'Theo has all kinds of woozy echoes from rock's catalogue of excesses ... the author's genius is to refract them through the innocent eyes of a ten-year old boy, which he does beautifully. This is a terrific book that transcends its subject matter to become a haunting meditation on childhood.' -THE BEDSIDE CROW 'It's the mid-to-late 1980s, and for anyone who knows the history of rock superstardom, it's hard not to map Theo's world on to one of the most notoriously dysfunctional groups on the planet ... Taylor's novel is a sustained howl of confusion and alienation as Theo runs up and down, in and out of the gothic Long Island pile where his father has left him with his grandfather and a useless minder. The blurring of inside and outside speaks of Theo's literal lack of boundaries, and when the big star himself turns up with a large, hedonistic entourage, the taking down of his flimsy inner walls is brutally completed.' -GUARDIAN
