Full of “Mistakes,” Tyler McMahon’s novel still steals your attention

book-cover-how-the-mistakes-were-madeThe recent tale of a grunge-era Seattle act making the big time, How the Mistakes Were Made, might just be the latest in a string of involving, yet deeply-flawed novels about fictional musical acts. Author Tyler McMahon‘s book has a story that grabs you by the hand, and pulls you into the story of the Mistakes, as well as its drummer (and the story’s protagonist), Laura Loss.

Loss was the bass player for D.C. hardcore band in the early ’80s called Second Class Citizens. Their story is told in flashback chapters in between the story of how Laura meets a couple of kids from Montana, and they end up forming an instantly iconic band, called the Mistakes. The story is strong, and McMahon’s depictions of concerts and inner dialogue are stellar.

Sadly, the book follows what might best be called the Salad Days formula. That book, by Charles Romalotti, has what I consider to the prototypical construction for most fictional band books that’ve come out in the past 15-20 years. You take real people and situations, and mix them up so they seem familiar, but not too much so.

Laura Loss is obviously a female composite of Dave Grohl. He drummed for D.C. hardcore band Scream, then Nirvana, then fronted the Foo Fighters. Much as his success with the Foos made his days in Nirvana a footnote, so does Loss’ drumming for the Mistakes erase her days as 16 year-old SCC bassist. Peripheral characters are much the same. Sound engineer Sheldon Quest, with his quirks and big drum sound, is a stand-in for Steve Albini.

What bothered me most about How the Mistakes Were Made comes towards the end of the book, when there’s a confrontation between the Mistakes and their opening act, wherein a shouting match erupts. The ensuing “Shut your bitch up!” segment is a verbatim replay of the Kurt Cobain-Courtney Love vs. Axl Rose incident backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards. It’s so iconic that it’s been in not one, but two recent books. Both Everybody Loves Our Town and I Want My MTV recount the exchange in detail.

Also, any time an author puts in segments where one of the characters explains music, movies, or – in the case of Laura and Nathan in the museums – art, it screams out to the reader, “Look at what I know! Aren’t are I clever and smart?” It’s lousy shorthand for character development, having your protagonist spout off like that. It’s the equivalent of Aranofsky giving Mila Kunis’ character in The Black Swan a huge back tattoo to show she’s a rebel – neither actually develops the character, it’s just using standard tropes to quickly communicate certain traits.

And, lastly – the whole “that band from Aberdeen – what’s their name? Nirvana?” shtick, and how they had “not much of a future”? Stop it. This book came out in 2011, not 1991. We all know Nirvana got huge, and anachronistic pseudo-humor is never clever.

The funny thing, though? Despite all those flaws that had me screaming, “Are you fucking KIDDING?!” How the Mistakes Were Made is a book that i couldn’t put down. It might be a complete and total pastiche of events blurred just enough to make them seem like they’re fictional, as opposed to retellings of things that happened to actual bands. It might have a slew of over-the-top personas, with McMahon seemingly inable to paint anyone in anything but broad strokes.

It might have all those flaws, but Tyler McMahon can still write a book that you cannot put down. You know the story’s going to end poorly, but each chapter teases out intrigue and twists with just enough salacious detail to keep you turning the pages. I finished it in two days, and that’s with setting it down, so as to not blast through it.

And, really – the songs? I may not have ever heard any of these, existing as they do in a completely textual manner, but I can hear them in my head. McMahon makes the live shows seem like things that actually happened. I swear to God, I might have actually attended these shows, so convincing and involving are his descriptions. There is a lot of money and acclaim for any band who can take the descriptions and lyrics and record the Mistakes’ songs.