Graveyard-shift
security guard and college dropout Charlie Price recently watched his fiancée die
in his arms. Believing it will help him move past her death, he reads book
after book after book from a list they created together during adventures in hole-in-the-wall
bookstores. After a particularly irritating work shift, Charlie comes home to
read a book, but, in the dead of night, an ice cream truck sits on the street
corner blaring its tinkling music. When Charlie approaches the truck to ask the
driver to turn off the music, the driver pulls out a gun and shoots at him.
From then on, a series of badly thought out decisions leads Charlie on an
adventure from his home in Pennsylvania to a terrorist cell in Yemen and back
again, throwing the sad, resigned young man into situations he thought he would
never be able to handle.
With
dark humor and a brilliantly honed command of language, Marc Pietrzykowski has
crafted a surprising, hilarious, and touching first novel. His previous poetry
publications are evident in his fine prose. After the very first chapter of the
book, protagonist Charlie Price already feels like a fully developed character,
like a friend (though he is practically friendless) of whom readers will enjoy
the company, despite his emotional turmoil over the recent loss of his fiancée
and his what-does-it-matter attitude. Pietrzykowski’s prose grasps the reader
immediately, thrusting them into Charlie’s head. Not just Charlie comes to life
on the page; so too do all the other characters, even those who only appear in
a few scenes. The settings as well are developed wonderfully.
The
first half of the book is both poetically tender and comically scatological.
The second half, however, takes a sharp turn from Charlie’s day-to-day life
disrupted by the murderous ice cream man when he is suddenly, and almost
inexplicably, kidnapped by terrorists and mistaken for a rogue soldier. Charlie’s
dark sense of humor, paired with his existential depression and hallucinations
of his deceased fiancée, gets him into more trouble at every turn. The snowball
effect of the plot keeps the reader turning the pages, yearning to know what
Charlie will do next. And while the unexpected plot twist splits the novel into
two distinct halves, the successfully character-driven plot makes Music Box Dancer one of the most
entertaining and original novels I have recently read.
It is
a rare occurrence for a writer to create a novel that features a wholly
developed and likeable—though sad and often lazy—protagonist, a distinct sense
of humor that begs a reader to laugh out loud, and finely tuned and poetic
prose, but Marc Pietrzykowski has done just that. This is a touching story that
makes both a political statement and takes the main character on a touching journey
to redemption and recovery. If he continues with his excellent work,
Pietrzykowski could become the next Chuck Palahniuk (with the same desperate need
of a nom de plume). A highly
recommended and memorable experience.
