Loudmouth: A Novel

In 1970s New York City, Thomas Ransom dreams that rock ‘n’ roll will be his ticket out of the life his conservative family planned for him, and he takes it to the extreme: burning bridges and houses on the way to discovering his true destiny.

Thomas Ransom, born to a severely dysfunctional southern family transplanted to New York City, is left to his own devices by neglectful parents, and spends his childhood shadowing his criminally-inclined half-brother and roaming the city with hard-drinking teenage pals. He eventually finds an outlet as the flamboyant singer of a downtown rock band, and later as the young editor of the Detroit-based magazine that invented punk, only to return to New York, at the height of the 1970s bacchanal, and crash. But it isn’t music that saves him. It’s a soft-spoken painter, who turns out to be the most outrageous character of all. With echoes of Almost Famous and Just Kids, Loudmouth tracks an impassioned musician and writer out among the punks, hippies, and wild geniuses of rock when music was the center of the world.

‘Read this book immediately if you like truth, drugs, generation gaps, guitars, and lifelong quests for freedom and kicks.’ - Craig Finn, The Hold Steady.