Last Night at the Disco - by Lisa Borders (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

" I may have ended up more notorious than famous, but make no mistake: long before Aura Lockhart began commodifying her feminist rage ballads, I was the best-known person to come out of Keyhole, New Jersey." In 1977, twenty-six-year-old Lynda Boyle is desperate for fame and a way out of New Jersey. After failing to make her mark as an East Village poet and rubbing elbows with stars at Studio 54, she discovers a new path to glory through two local musicians, Johnny Engel and Aura Lockhart. Lynda believes she alone can transform them into rock ' n' roll legends. Fast forward four decades: Lynda is in hiding after a series of events force her to flee the tri-state area. When she sees Aura inducting Johnny into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Lynda's rage ignites. Determined to reclaim her narrative, she sets out to tell her story and secure her rightful place in music history. If she settles a few other scores along the way, that's just a bonus. Last Night at the Disco is a bold exploration of ambition, fame, and the often messy intersections of friendship and betrayal in the music world.

Review Quotes

Last Night at the Disco is a comic gem, told from the perspective of a delusional narcissist with a Jersey-sized chip on her shoulder. Lisa Borders is a very funny writer who knows a ton about pop music and junior high school and bruised egos, and this is one of the most entertaining and psychologically astute novels I've read in quite some time.
- Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children and Tracy Flick Can't Win

In Last Night at the Disco, Lisa Borders has created an indelibly magnetic and occasionally terrifying heroine. Lynda Boyle is vain, seductive and irresistibly selfish, and her travels, from the Garden State suburbs to Studio 54 and beyond, are appalling and entrancing in equal measure. As a Jersey native, I can honestly testify that, along with organized crime, the Bergen Mall and the Atlantic City boardwalk, Lynda does our state proud, as a comic wonder and the star of this delightful novel.
- Paul Rudnick, author of What Is Wrong with You?

About the Author

Lisa Borders is the author of the novels Cloud Cuckoo Land, chosen by Pat Conroy as the winner of River City Publishing's Fred Bonnie Award and a Massachusetts Book Awards honoree, and The Fifty-First State. A frequent humor contributor at McSweeney's, her essays and short fiction have appeared in The Rumpus, Cognoscenti, Post Road and other journals. She lives in Central Massachusetts with her partner and two rescue cats.