Rewind, by Bruce Kimmel (2005)

Rewind, by Bruce Kimmel. Authorhouse. 2005

Jonathan Goldman is a successful producer of Broadway sountracks. For the last three years, he has run his own company, Twyckam Island, but the money to start up the business was provided by two investors, Dick and Deborah Bowman. There are a couple of thorns in his side; his useless secretary, Paula Finkel; his payroll manager, Bob Noone, who keeps wantinng to be given more things to do for the company, and Deborah Bowman, the bipolar (manic-depressive) woman who thinks Twyckam Island belongs to her and keeps referring to Jonathan as her employee.

Abruptly, however, Jonathan's world goes to hell in a handbasket. Paula quits, after sending him an email in which she accuses him of malfeasance and of inappropriate behavior toward her, and Dick and Deborah Bowman fire him, after finagling the business papers so that his name is no longer listed as an owner of Twyckam Island, but simply as that employee that Deborah had always claimed he was.

His life spirallig out of control - even if he sues the Bowman's he'll lose, as they're wealthy and can afford to keep the suit dragging on in the courts until he's bankrupt - Jonathan decides there's only one way out. He drives his car over a cliff.

Then....the people who caused him such misery begin to die...

Here are the first several paras of the opening chapter:

It was excruciating. She was on her fifth take; her pitchy singing and her interpretation of the song was, to put it in the nicest possible way, putrid. Suddenly, she stopped singing.

"Sorry, I need more me. Is that possible?" she asked, adjusting her headphones for the umpteenth time.

I looked over at my long-time engineer, Marty. My long-time engineer Marty was staring at the console, looking like he was about to throw up the cannelloni he'd had for lunch.

"She needs more her," I said.

Marty looked at me with his usual Marty look - the look of someone who was troubled with constant constipation (he wasn't - it was just his look). "I can give her more her until her ears bleed-it ain't gonna help."

I pressed the talkback button. "More you coming up," I said, with as much niceness as I could muster.

Marty turned a knob on the console, rewound the tape and started the track up again. The voice of Teddy, the conductor, came over the speakers, counting off -- "One, two, three," and, a beat later, the band played a four-bar intro. Callie dove into the song. Unfortunately, it wasn't a song you should dive into; it was a gentle song, a sweet song, a tender song, and she was singing it as if she was Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit. The vocal quality was laden with heaviness and darkness and weirdness, not tomention too much volume.It was stultifying, and it had been stultifying since take one. She stopped again.

Bruce Kimmel certainly is in his milieu in Rewind. A former actor (he had guest-starring roles in several sitcoms during the 1970s) Kimmel is also a singer (recording under the name Guy Haines) and a successful record - and now CD - producer. He produeced a hundred or so Broadway albums for Varese Sarabande, then, after they closed their division, he started his own label, Fynsworth Alley, usng start up money from a wealthy couple who were his investors...just like in Rewind.

Indeed, Rewind is semi-autobiographical, as Kimmel relates exactly what happened to him and Fynsworth Alley. His investors forced him out of his own label, they filed a lawsuit against him which almost bankrupted him, and after he was out of the picture they drove the label into the ground with their ineptness. He was driven to despair and felt like killing himself and them... but of course never did so, except in print. (Would that more people would take such a therapeutic step - write their murders instead of commit them.)

Kimmel writes relatively well, though he does have an annoying affectation -- all of his characters repeat themselves. (As for example in the example above, when Jonathan Goldman is talking about his sound engineer:

I looked over at my long-time engineer, Marty. My long-time engineer Marty was staring at the console, looking like he was about to throw up the cannelloni he'd had for lunch.

It would be okay if just one character did it - as for example Jonathan Goldman - as an example of his affectations, but every character does it. (Goldman narrates the first half of the book, but after he drives his car off a cliff, subsequent chapters are narrated by other people...using a technique derived (successfully) from Sunset Boulevard. ) And every character who takes up the narration thereafter does it, too.

For example, here's Brian Levitt:

A week after the funeral I got a call from James Bedford telling me the Bowmans were dropping the lawsuit. If I was willing to drop the countersuit, we could all just sign off and be done with it. While I would sincerely have loved to take that bitch to court, we all signed off and were done with it.

The book is certainly fascinating in what it reveals about the music business. But, knowing that he's written it based on true events, the characters are somewhat irritating. Useless secretary Paula Finkel, for example. If she was so useless, why didn't he fire her long ago, instead of letting her stick around being useless? Indeed, that would have made more sense. He fires her, and that's what prompts her to send him and the Bowmans the email in which she accuses him of stealing from the company and acting inappropriately with her. But instead, it's her choice to quit, and she writes the email out of sheer vindictiveness.

Bob Noone is simply an inherently dishonest individual. The name "Noone" must be a dig at the real-lfe payroll guy (no one, a nobody) who took over Goldman's company but wasn't any good at the producing end and thus everyone ended up hating him.

But the characters of Dick and Deborah Bowman? Deborah is a racist (he's Jewish) and she's homophobic (his sound engineer is gay) and yet he puts up with her regular stream of abuse instead of telling her to buy him out, or offering to buy them out? Doesn't say much for Goldman's character.

Kimmel has written another mystery for mature readers - Writer's Block, and two mysteries for kids featuring the character Adriana Hoffstetter. He publishes them all himself, through AuthorHouse, although this must not be held against him. The books are professionally edited, and while Kimmel's affectations and his ego can get a little wearing, the mysteries themselves are well-written. I think its simply Kimmel's desire to have complete control over his work that makes him publish the books himself, not that they're unworthy of being purchased by a "real" publisher - although said publisher might have given him an editor who could have gotten him to tone down his repetition schtick.

Unfortunately the prices for the boois are a bit high.... I'd be willing to read the Hofstetter books if I could get them for $6 a piece, but not for $15!