Book Review: Wonderkid by Wesley Stace
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Stace writes a fiction book that's got true-to-his-life connections.
Nowadays, the likes of Dan Zanes, the Wiggles and certain They Might Be Giants albums provide music for kids that won’t necessarily drive Mom and Dad bonkers. Wonderkid, the fourth novel from local writer/musician Wesley Stace, conjures an alternate reality where this all first happened 30 or so years ago.
The Wunderkinds are a struggling English rock quartet led by two brothers, Blake and Jack Lear. With lead singer Blake’s penchant for high-energy stage antics and gleeful nonsense lyrics, however, a group of label execs see fit to sign the band and redub them The Wonderkids. (It’s easy to imagine them sounding like a cross between Split Enz and Art Brut.) They play to audiences of pogoing toddlers, while parents happily head-bop in the back.
The Wonderkids’ story is told here by Sweet, a foster kid adopted by Blake, and drafted to man the merch table. His central presence makes the book into, among other things, a bittersweet coming-of-age story. Sweet grows up fast on the road, under the not-so-watchful eye of a surrogate father who, like so many rock stars, is a bit of an overgrown kid himself.
The Wonderkids rise up the charts, even as their rock cred is basically non-existent. (In one hilarious scene, an unnamed ‘60s icon who is almost certainly Pete Townshend snarls to Blake, “You’re in the worst fucking band in the whole universe!”) But even for a kids’ band, the temptations of the road become too much, and they succumb to all the sex, drugs and dissent that can plague chart-toppers. This makes Wonderkid especially timely, as it details the antics of a kid-centered act, and the rather predictable furor that accompanies them.
Stace himself is a music vet who, until recently, recorded and performed under the name John Wesley Harding. This background gives the book an especially lived-in and true-to-life air. Stace is keenly aware of the rigors of the road, and the travails of hype. He even wrote full songs for the band with Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces, and the lyrics appear at the book’s end.
In all, Wonderkid is a work of both great wit and deep tenderness. It’s a tale of raucous lost boys written by an author with an exacting eye, but who also truly feels for these misfits.
See Also: Author/musician Wesley Stace finally puts his name above the title.
