DOWNBEAT NOIR - The tale of a rock band's journey through the tumultuous sixties, led by an otherworldly guitar God - or Devil; and the fate of his hapless bandmates... and two strong, contrastingly different women...

About the Author

Joe Geremito occupies his time with family, writing fiction, and performing and composing music. He is currently at work on his second novel.

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ABOUT DOWNBEAT NOIR

The novel operates on multiple levels – and for good reason – but is fundamentally about perception, about dreams versus reality, and where the line can be drawn between the two. Or maybe more to the point, it indirectly poses the question: can a line be drawn between reality and illusion, or are they simply extreme poles of one litmus strip of universal perception, graduated in a hazy bas relief toward the middle, with no fixed tipping point comprehensible to the human psyche?

Jay, the protagonist of the tale, is a complex character who was difficult and ultimately satisfying to create. He is a talented musician with a healthy ego and drive, and with his heart firmly entrenched in the proper place; but also a flawed, conflicted individual wont to question his every major decision, his memories, his – perception. Looking back on a history rife with exhilarating highs and damning lows, one influenced by alcohol abuse and drug experimentation and populated by several extraordinary characters (some of whom toy with that aforementioned indistinct middle ground), he finds himself second-guessing virtually every major incident of his life’s memoir. Nonlinear through certain key passages, the tale is related thus to approximate his
random confusion and habitual wavering; since it is told almost entirely through his eyes (and in first person), there is much elbow room for other interpretations of events.

Each day as I sat down to write Downbeat Noir, I had to first crawl back into Jay’s mindset, remember his virtues, and his foibles, and then give myself over to his being and write from that potentially skewed perspective.

Difficult, as I’ve said; but gratifying. I like Jay quite a lot. He’s finally a survivor, albeit
one who recognizes the powerful – and, for him – lucky influence of the two strong women who touched his life indelibly. In the end, they represent two of the few constants he is entirely sure of outside of his foggy reflections.

And it follows, I also like Cecelia and Penny quite a bit. They are by turns brilliant,
complex, victimized, and finally triumphant in my…heh, heh, perception.

Thus, of necessity, Downbeat Noir must operate on several levels, if only to offer
alternative views – possibilities - of the protagonist’s version of events. It is a book that, once begun, took on a life of its own. I hope you will find it thought-provoking, a trippy excursion through the wildly creative, entirely apropos – and poignantly, darkly familiar – nineteen-sixties. And I challenge you, O Reader, to come to your own conclusions.