Synopses & Reviews
Tristan Egolf burst onto the literary scene with his first novel, Lord of the Barnyard, garnering renown around the world and instantly establishing himself as one of our most audacious and inventive young writers. Skirt and the Fiddle is a frenetic, hilarious love story that proves him to be more fearless than anyone thought. Charlie is a brilliant violinist who, embittered by a truly horrendous gig, has kissed the fiddle and the entire straight world good-bye. He lives in a flophouse among misfits like Armless Rob, Emmy Lou Mattressback, and Tinsel Greetz, an ersatz anarchist and 200-proof charlatan. Mutually antagonistic and joined at the shot glass, Tinsel and Charlie nevertheless make a great team, and when they get a highly illegal, extremely lucrative gig killing rats in the sewers, they are a deadly, unstoppable force. The morning after dissipating their hard-earned money, the boys wake up in a hotel with the worst hangovers of their lives, and when Charlie meets the bewitching Louise, who's offered them shelter -- well, then he's in trouble of a whole new sort. Skirt and the Fiddle is a headlong plunge into the absurdity of infatuation, and an exuberant novel that will cement Tristan Egolf's place among our best young writers.
Review
"This energetic and entertaining work seems more like an expanded short story, but the author's vibrant writing and lunatic vision might be especially appealing to a younger (college age and up) audience." Jim Coan, SUNY Coll. at Oneonta
Review
[Egolf is] a writer eager to take chances, totally unafraid and allergic to conventions....Skirt and the Fiddle is certainly Felliniesque....[It] makes for scenes that are off-the-wall, at times very funny. Jean Charbonneau, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Review
"A novel of raging intellect....Full-tilt madcap antics from a lean and mean fabulist of the first degree." Kirkus Reviews
Review
[Egolf's] vibrant writing and lunatic vision....creates a bizarre world peopled with cartoonish freaks, losers, and down-and-outers....The novel features extended slapstick scenes of comic destruction and nightmarish wackiness. Library Journal
Synopsis
Egolf burst onto the literary scene with his first novel, "Lord of the Barnyard, " garnering renown around the world and instantly establishing himself as an audacious and inventive young writer. "Skirt and the Fiddle" is his frenetic, hilarious love story about a group of misfits in a flophouse.