A mildly engaging story about a Southern bar band called Anything Goes told from the point of view of Jesse, the bands' 20-something guitar player. We follow the band as they travel from dive to dive, losing members, gaining members and finding their groove.

Since Jesse is the narrator, the focus is mainly on him: his relationship with his formerly abusive, alcoholic father, his crush on Estelle, the band's new lead singer and his attempts to sort out his post-adolescent angst regarding family, women and music. The other band members don't feature too prominently and aren't very well-developed, although the book would have been more interesting if they were. Nor did Bell delve too deeply in Jesse's past relationship with his dad. There's also a little "surprise" relationship involving Estelle and Jesse's dad, but unless you're really thick, it won't come as much of a shock.

It seemed to me that something was missing from this story. Maybe it was the shallowness of the characters, maybe it was the meandering nature of the novel; there was no real plot, just a succession of gigs at roadhouses up and down the East coast. It was, however, a convincing depiction of life with a bar band, and that managed to hold my interest enough until the rather lackluster ending.

"Anything Goes" drifts along, raveling out the thread of its story in a leisurely style that's at once engaging and attractive. Taking place over a year and in many locales, "Anything Goes" introduces us to Jesse, a disaffected and somewhat bitter young man traveling through his life as a member of a band called...you guessed it...Anything Goes. As a band name, the title [is bad].... But as a theme for the novel it works quite well.

Jesse, abandoned as a child by his mother and physically abused by his father, has become a man who doesn't expect good things from the world. As he matures throughout the pages of this book, he discovers himself in ways that are both subtle and poignant. This is a quiet story that stays with you long after you've read it...and I recommend giving it a read!

Filled with themes of identity, family, and maturity, Bell's thirteen book takes place over a year, following a Nashville-based cover band as they travel down the eastern seaboard and up into Vermont, playing roadhouses a few weeks at a time. Jesse is their bassist, and for him, the ritual of being on the road creates a sense of security and family, since his mother abandoned him soon after birth, and his alcoholic father beat him all through childhood. Jesse is happy to follow the warm weather around, playing music, scoring occasional women, and then hanging out at band leader (and surrogate father figure) Perry's farm during the off-season.

This steady existence is skewed somewhat when Jesse's father shows up clean and sober, and looking for reconciliation. Part of this involves introducing him to a neighbor whose singing knocks his socks off. Soon enough, she's in the band, and they have great and greater success, all while Jesse struggles to identify his feelings for her and hers for him. Nothing earth-shattering happens in the book, but the relationships and issues are all captivating and feel true to life. Jesse 's mother was a Melungeon (a dark mysterious Appalachian people whose origins are unknown) and the band's drummer is black, allowing Bell to touch on racial identity issues here and there as the band drifts though white-trash venues all through the South. The towns, bars, and motels all spring from the page as real places, with history and grit to them.

Over the course of the year's cycle, Jesse comes to terms with his past, his heritage, and his future in a very non-soap opera way. This book could have easily drifted into sappiness (think Oprahish) and never quite does. The last portions get a touch heavy-handed, but never so much as to spoil the easygoing tone of the book. Musicians may especially enjoy this book as there is a great deal of language attempting to describe how Jesse feels about hearing and playing music, and how it infects his whole being. One last note, the first chapter originally appeared as a short story in the "It's Only Rock And Roll" anthology.

I found this an extremely difficult read: I was 16, knew nothing about Haiti's history, and spoke no French. I took nearly three months to finish reading the book, because every so often I had to take a break from the horrific violence Bell portrays. In the end, however, this novel remains one of the most impressive I have ever read, in terms of the way it really made me think. The depths of terror and violence to which Bell's characters resorted shocked me. But I did not lose sight of the novel's bigger picture. Ultimately, I have little sympathy for the book's reviewers who could not see past the novel's violence and complexity. Five tries to get through the book? Try a Dick and Jane reader, then, and come back in a few years.

If one wants a powerful and unsettling sense of how the roots of race were buried so deeply in the western hemisphere, and how they entangle so much of the reality of the 20th Centurye, there is no better guide than Madison Smartt Bell. His powerful, blood-seeped, historical novel "All Souls Rising," traces the vibrant African will to freedom as it collides with the arrogant and brutal Colonial settlers of France and the mixed-bloods and others who sought to ride the horse of horrors. Though the land of Bell's imagination is confined mostly to the isolated half of the island known to Columbus as Hispaniola, and to the modern world as Haiti, the reader's imagination will be carried to events as fresh in their humanity as tonight's news reports. Through Bell's brilliantly informed imagination, the souls he births ring all too true-to-life, shudderingly so. Bell's creations will resonate forever in the minds the readers and chillingly so for those who have ever visited Haiti. The awful reality of Bell's world tell us, yes, it must have been that way and it reminds us that there can no other explanation for the world of the races as we know it today

how race relations realy were during slavery then this is your book. Bell takes us deep into the souls of cruel slave owners and rebellious slaves.This is one of the few books where the events are explained the way they happend,without restrictions.A very informative novel about the first days of the Haitian revolution,an awsome read.Buy this book you won't regret it.

I purchased this because I read about a movie being made based on it. Allegedly, it was all about an American hypnotherapist helping Scotland Yard with a serial killer case. Well, that part of the book takes up about ten pages. I know some people enjoy reading just for the words -- sort of like poetry. And there's no doubting that these are good words. However, if you're looking for a story, look elsewhere.

One of the best novels of recent years. Bell's story of an insomniac hypotist is by turns funny, scary, perplexing, intriquing, and almost any other adjective that inspires interest. All of Bell's fiction ranks among the best being written today, but Dr. Sleep and Waiting for the End of the World are especially rich examples of his earlier work.