Songs From Richmond Avenue by Michael Reed offers an off-kilter, satirical take on big-city misfits, the bars they frequent and the occasional, albeit, misguided quest for something better.
If the adage “nothing civilized ever resulted from the drinking of beer” requires further proof, one needs look no farther than down Houston’s pothole-infested Richmond Avenue. There, the blurry-eyed denizens of the Relix Club wile away the hours engaged in their two favorite activities – drinking and betting.
Until recently that was good enough for our storyteller, a journalist of questionable work ethic, who undergoes an epiphany following a bus stop meeting with pretty Michelle, a woman he declares has “skin so perfect I doubted she even had pores.”
Could she be his redemption? Maybe, but first he’d better contend with her baseball bat-wielding former beau, her nihilistic stripper roommate and the suspicious death of a friend, who fancies himself the father of Brute Generation poetry.
Mostly satire, often wildly unpredictable, the only real long shot in Songs From Richmond Avenue would be for its protagonist to put down his beer long enough to learn anything of true value.
Excerpt
I quit yelling and thrashing about soon, partly out of exhaustion, but mostly because as I opened my eyes I saw an upside-down view of my captors, a muscle-headed youth with stubble for hair, barely out of his teens, and a girl who stood at an angle that only allowed me to see an amazingly well-toned abdomen below a white halter top. Apparently, no one thought about blindfolding me even as they shredded the sheets. I wasn’t sure if this level of innate stupidity on the part of the bad guys was a good thing or not, but if nothing else, they were consistent.
“Now you done it. You done seen my face,” Muscle Head Boy shouted, as Rock Abs Girl came fully into view to get a closer look at me.
“Hi, my name’s Amberlynn, all one word,” she said, extending her hand toward my still prone body before remembering my hands were tied. “I hear you write for the newspaper in Houston…”
Muscle Head Boy cracked. His face was no longer in view, but he yelled, “Oh shit, oh goddamn; oh shit, oh goddamn,” repeatedly and in increasingly rapid succession. From the sound of it, he was pacing back and forth near the far wall as he did so.
“Help me tip him back up right, Johnny,” Rock Abs Girl, aka Amberlynn all one word, called to the freshly redubbed Muscle Head Boy.
“Oh shit, oh goddamn; oh shit, oh goddamn …”
“Come on, this looks uncomfortable, baby. Don’t be such as groove pooper,” she said, before bending down a couple of feet from my face and adding in a whisper, “A groove pooper is someone who comes along and poops on your groove, you know. I made that up myself to put on T-shirts. That was right before y’all stopped and gave me a ride …”
“So, Johnny, you guys pick up hitchhikers during kidnappings often or is Amberlynn a special case,” I asked, regretting the words even as they left my mouth.
“Quit talking to him, dammit, Amberlynn …. He already knows way too much …”
“But …” “No ‘buts’ about it, woman,” Johnny shouted, sounding slightly less deranged, but throwing in a final “Oh shit, oh goddamn” for good measure. “You said it yourself; he’s one of them newspaper guys. Word pussies! That’s right. You’re one of them word pussies, ain’t ya? Word pussies. That’s what my ol’ man calls y’all. Always writin’ stuff down and fiddle fuckin’ around in other people’s affairs. Word pussy! Word pussy!”
Miraculously, I managed not to say anything other than “I don’t write. I edit.” And I said it much softer than any of us had spoken for a while.
Professional Reviews
A Funny, Great Book
By Michael P. Hartnett, author of Generation Dementia
Songs from Richmond Avenue by Michael Reed is a smart, gritty tale filled with humor, charm and second (make that third and fourth) chances. The nameless narrator (it’s amusing how in all his scenes, dialogues, and interactions Reed playfully keeps the name from the reader) is dealing with the losses of friends who populate the ne’er-do-well Houston neighborhood surrounding Richmond when he meets the lovely Michelle on the bus.
Their tumultuous romance begins at the seedy Relix Club during one endless night (it goes on for a couple of days) that carries the two through encounters with the bar’s regulars, the caretaking of the three-legged, mutton-chopped, stubby-tailed mutt named Strummer, threats from Michelle’s entitled yet deranged ex-boyfriend, the death of yet another friend, conversations with the homeless Ned and Bridgman, a twisted tale of what happened to the narrator over someone else’s gambling debt, and the regular and amusing reappearances of colorful characters with names like the Buddhist.
Beer and other spirits flow throughout and the reader is taken along for a ride at once intoxicating and engaging. At a core level, the story is the traditional guy chases girl, even as the guy’s shiftless friends and lack of stability make him feel unworthy of her. “Soon I knew she’d realize, whether she just knew things or not, that guys like me never completely run out of mistakes and that knowing guys like me wasn’t a particularly good career move either.”
Reed has a gift of creating ridiculous characters who are not caricatures. Because his narrator engages his quirky friends with an earnest familiarity, the reader finds their predilections and idiosyncrasies credible. Endowed with this surreal cast of characters, Songs from Richmond Avenue hums along on its own perverse, comic logic. “It seemed the only thing I knew for sure about Honey Sanchez was that her name wasn’t Honey Sanchez.”
Reed’s narrator stumbles through his misadventures, wryly observing, groping toward romance, with just enough self-deprecation and wit to make the reader convinced he has a real shot at finding love. He is simultaneously earnestly bewildered – “I never understood a lot of things less complicated than why people put up with each other” – yet surprisingly determined: “On the one side, the right of privacy, simple common decency and, of course, the law. On the other, doing what I wanted to do.”
Scene after scene delivers, whether it’s the trip to the Fiesta Supermarket or the time in the office with Michelle’s boss Abraham Wade. Filled with satiric commentary, Songs from Richmond Avenue has clever, interconnecting story lines that loop back around to each other. No tale is more telling than the one of Jonesy, journalist and composer of bombastically hilarious verses, whose fate serves as a revealing allegory of our times.
Songs from Richmond Avenue is a wonderful debut by Reed. He is an infectious writer who style makes the pages fly by. I truly look forward to his future works which I am confident will make me laugh and think as much as this fine novel has.
Journalism Meets Epiphany in ‘Songs from Richmond Avenue’
By Lexy Voytek, the Albuquerque Free Press
Michael Reed’s “Songs from Richmond Avenue” was the cynically humorous story I’ve been waiting for.
It was a well-written novel that didn’t take itself too seriously, and in turn had some poignant moments. The book is about a journalist in Houston, who seems to remain rather nameless, but sometimes is referred to as Mr. Newsman. He’s a regular guy kind of guy – a bus-riding, American beer-drinking kind of guy.
He meets a very beautiful, not as regular kind of gal, Michelle. She’s not a bus-riding kind of gal and she drinks unpronounceable beers. He meets Michelle, oddly enough, at the bus stop near his house. She is waiting for someone to pick her up, but she confesses she notices our regular guy at the bus stop every day on her drive to work.
Michelle is waiting for her ride at the bus stop because she is considering becoming a bit more streetwise and saving some money by riding the bus. She invites him over to see her house – the one her more elite friends and family disapprove of, the same people who disapprove of her riding the bus when she has a perfectly fine car. Setting plays a big role in this book, from the bus stop – where our regular guy has his homeless friends, and meets the beautiful Michelle – to the dive bar, the Relix Club, that he goes to every day. This is the kind of bar that has the limited selection of one box of red wine, one box of white wine, some domestic beers, and their “lite” counterparts.
There was a lot going on in this story, from the unpredictable consequences of shady gambling, to the just-out-of-reach love story between Mr. Newsman and Michelle. Even though there was death, sleepless nights and drunken shenanigans, there was a little too much meandering of the story from time to time. Mr. Newsman had moments where he’d let his mind wander and we, as the reader, were obliged to follow. Sometimes this added to the story, but mostly it distracted from the immediate action. The story was fun, and the voice was strong, which cushioned the anti-climactic ending. The point of the story wasn’t so much the plot, but the amusing and well-crafted delivery of the book.
Midwest Book Review
"All the more impressive when considering that "Songs From Richmond Avenue" is Texas journalist Michael Reed's debut as an author, this deftly crafted, compellingly entertaining novel showcases his genuine flair for narrative storytelling. Highly recommended and certain to bean immediate and enduringly popular addition to community library Contemporary General Fiction collections."
- Able Greenspan
Welcome to the Den. I immediately perked up when I saw the title because I've been stuck in Houston for 35 years when I was asked to come here to help "turn around," TSU. Unfortunately, after 30 years of hard work, TSU keeps spinning around, but not necessarily in a positive way.
I can see that you are an excellent writer by your awards and the reviews you have. In all my years in Houston living on the southwest side, I never bar crawled on Richmond. I do recall joining my boss there one night, briefly, to a young black hotspot and going to a place at closing in the wee hours with my girlfriend only to be hit up in the parking lot by some guy with a strange story about bus fare for his pregnant girlfriend to Galveston… My girlfriend stupidly giving him money. And then, watching him hopping in a car with other parking lot beggars and go hit other easy marks that were drunk after hours.
I have had the good fortune to ride the bus on Richmond and find that, once in a while, I can make contact with other passengers. But mostly, I have used Metrolift where I have come in contact with the Houston disabled community. Like going to a bar night after night, you eventually meet the same people over and over and start talking to them, hearing their story.
I'm sure that your characters come from real life experiences on the crazy streets of Houston. In my latest novel that I'm posting here, chapter by chapter, my protagonist has so far gone nameless. I was toying with the idea of him signing his memoir just before he dies at the end of the book. But I haven't decided yet whether I would name him or not. Thank you for verifying that it is an approach that can be taken. I don't read novels very much and I don't think I can get to yours. I've promised others and haven't read their work. Currently, after about a week and a half, about 15 pages into Ralph W. Braun's autobiography Rise Above. I picked it up free at the Abilities Expo a couple of years ago. I never bought or read newspapers. I do read Playboy every month cover to cover, and especially like the short stories.
The Apple Tree Blossoms in The Fall, is the life journey of Carineh - a child, a teenager, a wife, a mother, but most of all a woman of purpose. From stories of her parents held-up by bandits; the white donkey gifted by Khomeini; her father's death f
3 WAY MIRROR is about a lost identity as experienced by a twenty-eight-year old who thinks he's Charles Randall, until strange events suggest otherwise.
