Verse Chorus Press: 26 books

A new edition of a classic of contemporary American literature, first published in 1997 by Sun & Moon Press but unavailable in recent years. “Dra-, the nondescript heroine of this grim, hilarious fiction, might have fallen through the same hole as Lewis Carroll's Alice, only now, 130 years...

Set in Los Angeles in the early 90s, the novel chronicles the early days of an indie band as they meet, practice, make their first record, and get their first break/big gig. It’s also the story of the the flowering love affair between John and Jenny, the two charming if troubled guitarists/singers...

When Robert Forster and Grant McLennan formed the Go-Betweens in Brisbane in 1977, they were determined to be different. They were angular, spare, and poetic when crashing direct­ness was the prevailing style. Their heroes were Dylan, Creedence, and Television, when it was more fashionable to cite...

The definitive account of AC/DC's rise to fame, when the ribald lyrics and charismatic stage presence of singer Bon Scott, along with the guitar work of Angus and Malcolm Young, defined a new, highly influential brand of rock and roll. Drawing on many interviews and featuring a gallery of rare photos,...

For almost thirty years, the Church have crafted music that blends a rich variety of styles in a beautiful, multi-layered sound. They have encompassed pop, psychedelic, progressive, and straight-ahead rock, yet always remain distinctive, thanks to the inimitable vocals and lyrics of front man Steve...

David Nichols tells the story of Australian rock and pop music from 1960 to 1985 – formative years in which the nation cast off its colonial cultural shackles and took on the world. Generously illustrated and scrupulously researched, Dig combines scholarly accuracy with populist flair. Nichols...

Camden Joy’s hero can’t wrap up the quickie biography of rock star Liz Phair he’s been commissioned to write. Instead, the shaky author finds himself recounting the troubled events of his own life. His ex-girlfriend (who just might be the illegitimate daughter of dead Rolling Stone Brian Jones),...

Robert Dean Lurie’s biography is the first completely researched and written since R.E.M. disbanded in 2011. It offers by far the most detailed account of their formative years—the early lives of the band members, their first encounters with one another, their legendary debut show, touring out...

Lost Joy collects the writing that first brought Camden Joy wide attention in the mid-90s, when he wheatpasted his “manifestoes” around New York, excoriating the music industry and celebrating unsung geniuses of rock and roll. Joy’s voice-heartfelt, mocking, lyrical, razor-sharp-earned comparisons...

From the get-go, it's clear that something strange is afoot in Munson, the fictional Florida hamlet where Stacey Levine's new novel, Frances Johnson, takes place. A volcano seethes on the outskirts of town, strange animals skitter in the shadows, and a dense brown fog has settled overhead. Pets and...

It's Halloween night, 1963, in De Pere, Wisconsin. Local children dressed as ghosts, vampires, and hoboes chase one another on and off porches and through the streets, hunting for Dum Dums, Slo Pokes, and thrills. Meanwhile their parents fill the local bars, joking and fighting, bobbing for apples,...

In this unusual “collaborative novel,” Jake Yoder, a precocious boy caught between Amish culture and the modern world, sits in his middle-school classroom writing stories at the behest of a stern but charismatic teacher. Jake's stories feature children who are crushed, imprisoned, and distorted,...

A pair of novellas, lyrical, haunting, and bleak, that offer an unsparing yet emotionally rich vision of contemporary America. In Some Phantom an unnamed woman arrives in a strange city, fleeing a violent relationship. She begins to explore the city and its inhabitants and takes a job teaching disturbed...

In his books and in a string of wide-ranging and inventive essays, Luc Sante has shown himself to be not only one of our pre-eminent stylists, but also a critic of uncommon power and range. He is “one of the handful of living masters of the American language, as well as a singular historian and philosopher...