BAROQUE-A-NOVA

I just finished Kevin Chong's first novel, BAROQUE-A-NOVA, which I decided to read after reading Chong's NEIL YOUNG NATION a few weeks back. The novel is good: it's definitely a first novel, but fortunately it ISN'T a heartfelt retelling of the author's youth (or I don't think). There's a strong Nick Hornby (HIGH FIDELITY) influence in it, but it isn't slavishly derivative, either. It's the story of an eighteen-year-old Canadian boy, the child of a very popular singing duo of absent parents. As the novel opens the boy's mother dies in Thailand and the book retells the following week. It's quite funny at times (Richard, the German TV producer is especially sharp). I'm looking forward to Chong's next novel.