If You Don't Succeed, You Only Have Yourself to Blame: A Review of Will Boast's Power Ballads

Will Boast’s story “Dead Weight” appeared in the most recent issue of Storyglossia. So what did I do after reading it (besides read it again)? Exactly what every person with a Facebook account does these days: I began stalking him. First I sent him a message to tell him how much I loved his story. This was accompanied by a “friend request.” Then I listened to his band. Here’s something else I discovered: Will Boast is a damn good drummer.

Boast’s linked collection of stories entitled Power Ballads (which won the Iowa Short Fiction Award), introduces us to Tim who is also a damn good drummer. In “Dead Weight,” Tim replaces the overweight drummer in an up-and-coming band after the label decides he doesn’t meet their aesthetic requirements. In other stories, we see young Tim playing tuba in a polka band and later gigging with a rock band past its expiration date. But a degree in music theory isn’t required here. The real music is in the interplay between the characters.

What’s fascinating (and what makes me maddeningly jealous) is how Boast talks about music without talking about music. Sure, there’s mention of the hip blogs Pitchfork and Stereogum, as well as ruminations on the vibrant Chicago music scene. In each story, the characters are musicians at varying stages of their careers or the wives and girlfriends that come second to the music. But the trick is this: the book isn’t about any of that. These are people struggling to find their identity.

For Tim, who is the link between most of these stories, finding himself is hard when he’s constantly filling in for someone else. He’s the guy they call when a drummer drops out or isn’t good enough for the big time. If the money’s right, he will play with over-the-hill metal bands or quiet singer-songwriters. Tim finds fault with his father who is constantly starting over, finding new ways to make money and new places to live. He resents his father for not keeping a home for him to return to after his mother died. It’s not until the end that he sees the irony of his scorn, that he too is constantly reinventing himself for each new band and project. Just like his father, he can’t settle down.

That sense of identity, of finding your purpose, all hinges on the amount of fame you hope to achieve. This is summed up brilliantly by Sue, the wife of a non-stop touring musician in the story “Sidemen” and is something that I think every artist understands:

“Thirty years ago, people bragged about their sister or uncle or brother-in-law being personal secretary, gardener, caddy, you name it, to such-and-such city alderman or some bigwig down at Montgomery Ward.  Now everyone wants to be lauded on their own merits, adored if possible. Does getting by no longer constitute a life? Thirty years ago, you were proud to be a janitor, to scrub toilets in a good building, work for a good company. Now you despise yourself for missing the chance at something better, something that might have gotten you featured in a magazine. Fame is never out of reach; you just didn’t grab it when you could have.”

And that’s the heart of the struggle. If you don’t succeed, you only have yourself to blame. When Tim’s father gets hurt at his current job loading food into a freezer, Tim leaves Chicago to visit him in the hospital. They tell his father that he’ll never have to work again, and Tim knows that will be the end of him. These odd jobs define him. Before heading off to tour Europe with a jazz band, Tim goes to his father’s apartment to get him some clothes for his hospital stay, and he finds a shrine his father has erected in his honor. His father has pictures of Tim setting up his first drum set, watching Elvin Jones in concert and a drawing he made as a teenager of a stage with all the spotlights pointing at him. In the most poignant moment of the entire collection, he finally makes an admission:

“I felt embarrassed and shy to see that here, in this obscure corner of nowhere, I’d already made it.”

Read this book as soon as you can.