Poor Ghost - by David Starkey (Hardcover)

About the Book

On a September afternoon in Santa Barbara, a private jet carrying the members of Poor Ghost--one of America's most storied rock bands--plunges into the backyard of Caleb Crane, a retired insurance salesman. Poor Ghost moves back and forth between the impact of the plane crash on Caleb's life, and an oral history of Poor Ghost, from its beginnings as a working-class punk band to rock icons.

Book Synopsis

The Next Great Rock and Roll Novel

On a September afternoon in Santa Barbara, a private jet carrying the members of Poor Ghost--one of America's most storied rock bands--plunges into the backyard of Caleb Crane, a retired insurance salesman. Still mourning his wife's death from Covid, Caleb finds himself navigating trauma, grief, and loss, all while his quiet neighborhood is invaded by pushy reporters and rabid Poor Ghost fans.

For fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid's Daisy Jones & the Six and its fictional documentary structure, Poor Ghost moves back and forth between the impact of the plane crash on Caleb's life and an oral history of Poor Ghost--from its beginnings as a working-class punk band to rock icons. As the twisting and turning strands of the plot converge, readers are shown what happens when different worlds (literally) collide with one another, and how we view, negotiate, argue with, and aid those who are unlike us.

Review Quotes

"As you read David Starkey's Poor Ghost, you'll be thinking deeply about how we got from Boston to QAnon, from Casey Kasem to Kyle Rittenhouse: what it all means to you, and what it says about us. But you won't notice you're thinking, because you'll be laughing too hard as Stacey the retired librarian knocks out knife-wielding Álvaro de Campos with a jug of rosé to keep him from killing you in your own backyard while other Halloween-costumed fans of the aging rock band whose plane crashed there a while back livestream the fracas. By the time you realize how involved you are in the deepening mystery, it will be too late to get out." --H. L. Hix, author of Legible Heavens and The Death of H. L. Hix

"Poor Ghost opens with a bang and a fire that chars a shattered Cessna and a towering pine tree. It ends with another bang from an exploding brushfire that consumes a massive 70 acres...In between, this highly original novel--unlike any I've ever read--shifts among second-person revelations, text exchanges, rock magazine interviews, news articles, and government reports, exploring the ghosts of those departed and those about to be. There's an invasion of groupies, lunatic murderers, a missing dog, and the mystery of what caused the plane crash. David Starkey makes it all meaningful, bringing the dead to life and offering rich, inventive entertainment." --Walter Cummins, author of Where We Live and Seeking Authenticity

"Poor Ghost is an examination of how we deal with loss and change and a tribute to the best band that never was, set in the confusing time of COVID lockdown. I appreciate David Starkey's improvisations on rock history, but I am most touched by his portrayal of the slow dance of grief." --Glen Phillips, Singer/Songwriter (Toad the Wet Sprocket)

"From its riveting opening through the wonderfully imaginative unfolding of its narrative, Poor Ghost is a lively hopscotch of a novel, compelling, deep and powerful."--T.C. Boyle, author of Blue Skies

"Poor Ghost is straight-up beautiful. The daily chaos of the twenty-first century collides with the narrator's dark and private emptiness, and somehow Starkey does all of this without a trace of irony or cynicism. I'll say it again: beautiful. I bloody loved it." --Craig Clevenger, author of The Contortionist's Handbook and Mother Howl

"What makes a band great? Dying in a fiery plane crash? Legions of fans who just won't let them go? Poor Ghost is all this and more. [The book is] a story of deep human connections, of music and love and loss. From the first blast of power chords to its heart-wrenching finale, this is the great rock and roll novel you've been waiting for." --Glenn Dixon, author of Bootleg Stardust

"An inventive and ethereal mystery... Poor Ghost is whip-smart and authentic about how we manufacture sentimentality in our artificial, internet lives.... The church of the weird has rarely been written about with more pathos and indeed gallows humor." --Craig Campbell, Louder Than War

"David Starkey is a very clever and talented writer... the more I read about the music of the band Poor Ghost, the more I kept wishing that they had been an actual real band." --Plethora of Pop

About the Author

David Starkey served as Santa Barbara's 2009-2011 Poet Laureate. He is Founding Director of the Creative Writing Program at Santa Barbara City College, Co-editor of the California Review of Books, and the Publisher and Co-editor of Gunpowder Press. Over the past thirty-five years, he has published eleven full-length collections of poetry with small presses--most recently Dance, You Monster, to My Soft Song and What Just Happened: 210 Haiku Against the Trump Presidency--and more than 500 poems in literary journals such as American Scholar, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, and Southern Review. His textbook, Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief (Bedford/St. Martin's), is in its fourth edition. He is also the author of two composition textbooks: Hello, Writer: An Academic Writing Guide (Bedford/St. Martin's) and Academic Writing Now: A Brief Guide for Busy Students (Broadview). Starkey is also a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction (published in American Literary Review, in Cimarron Review, in Living Blue in the Red States, and elsewhere), and a playwright whose plays have been produced across the United States (davidstarkey.net).