Completeness of the Soul

Like other rock stars before him, Jay Breeze has been relegated to "the dustbin of history." Consigned there even before his car hit a tree, Jay's reality was fan-dictated: the embodiment of a past that "the future thought it was." His literary executor, Charlie Beagle, journalism professor, Rolling Stone contributing editor, and former bandmate, retrieves the scraps-what seems the detritus of his friend's life-and composes the ballad of Jay Breeze, Rock Star. Bridging audience and artist, persona and man, musician and muse, reader and unflinchingly rendered character, Beagle arranges Jay's woeful, passionate lyrics into a haunting, heartbreaking song.