Review: 'Till the Wheels Fall Off,' by Brad Zellar

For many of us, a specific soundtrack accompanies the memories of our youth. Pick a year and location and an eclectic mixtape emerges, and one is instantly transported. This is certainly the case with Brad Zellar's most recent novel, "Till the Wheels Fall Off," which follows Matthew Carnap, who grew up in the small Midwestern town of Prentice during the late 1980s with unfettered access to an extensive and deep music experience, thanks to his stepfather, Russ.

(Over the years, the author has often collaborated with photographer Alec Soth, creating W.G. Sebald–like narratives, such as "House of Coates.") This tender, circuitous novel is a lesson in dedicated music listening, but also in how music brings together two remote individuals in unexpected ways.

After attempting to find his way as an adult (first servicing coin-operated condom dispensers and later as a writer for a weekly newspaper, which eventually folded), Matthew finds himself back in Prentice, living in the refurbished press box of the abandoned football stadium. Unfortunately, his former stepfather, Russ, has disappeared from his life, and his mother has died of breast cancer. Here, among the closed factories and abandoned retail businesses, Matthew attempts to unearth remnants of his Midwestern childhood.

Beyond the music, the relationship between an idiosyncratic stepfather and his struggling stepson is at the heart of this novel. Much of Matthew's parenting comes via Russ and his obsessions with music and his roller rink, Vargo's Screaming Wheels.

"I still remember the way the wheels would sound when Russ would skate alone out in the rink in the early mornings or late at night, and I'd sit awake in my little bedroom next door," writes Zellar. "Or when the rink was crowded with skaters, and the hundreds of polyurethane wheels going around and around created a steady hum — equal parts highway traffic, gully washer, or heavy surf. You could feel it even beneath or beyond the music pulsing from the ceiling speakers."

The interior first-person narrative meanders through the shadows and light of Matthew's youth. Despite the frequent use of flashbacks, Zellar creates a compelling, authentic portrait of a young man who manages to reconstruct bits and pieces of himself.

The author writes: "When you're young the past is yesterday, a small and relatively manageable compartment of memories, most of which still have living corollaries or prompts you spend your days living with and moving among. You have all these people who share at least some portion of your memories and your past, and your orbit is often so compact and reliable that every day you move in and out of familiar places that are concrete repositories of memories. They contain you and all your stories and history."

Taken altogether, "Till the Wheels Fall Off" is a beautiful, captivating novel of memory, connection and music.

S. Kirk Walsh, a native of Detroit, is the author of "The Elephant of Belfast."

Till the Wheels Fall Off

By: Brad Zellar.

Publisher: Coffee House Press, 328 pages, $17.85.

Events: 7 p.m. July 14, Moon Palace Books, Mpls.; 6 p.m. July 22, Barely Brothers Records, St. Paul; 6 p.m. July 28, Next Chapter Booksellers, St. Paul.