Imperfect Solo
by Steven Boykey Sidley
For Readers of Jonathan Tropper and Philip Roth, the Darkly Comic, Poignant Story of a Man Caught Between the Aspirations of Youth and the Realities of Middle Age—Called "A Perfect Riff on What It Means to Be Human in This Unsettled Age" (Renée Montagne, NPR) Meyer is filled with dread. His fading musical aspirations, his tyrannical CEO, his ex-wives, his exiting girlfriend, his elderly father, his beloved and troublesome children, and his confused and bewildered life all attest to his conviction that the sky will soon fall on his head. And then it does. This is the story of a man adrift in anxiety, ill fortune, and comic mishap, buffeted by the existential and prosaic concerns that modern life in Los Angeles inflicts. Forty years old, caught in the netherworld between the reckless optimism of youth and the resignation of age, Meyer tries to find handrails and ballast. Funny, intellectually probing, and poignant, Imperfect Solo follows the...