Great Jones Street

Great Jones Street is the 1973 novel by Don Delillo about the reclusive rock star, Bucky Wunderlick.  Wunderlick lives in an unfurnished apartment on Great Jones Street, Manhattan, where he is hassled by his agent, a drug dealer, neighbors, and other strange people.  The two main plot elements are a new drug that inhibits the speech center of the brain and the so-called "Mountain Tapes," a series of 20 songs recorded by Bucky in the mountains.  This all must sound very Pink Floyd to most readers, but we have to remember that The Wall was realized later in the 1970s.  A more likely basis for the Wunderlick character is Bob Dylan, who recorded the Basement Tapes, which were mired in rumor and legend until their release in 1975.

I listened to a new recording of the Great Jones Street audiobook, released on Audible earlier this month.  The recording gives the novel an otherworldly feel, as if the events take place in the future or on another planet.  The book itself, we have to remember, is pure 1970s and touches upon themes delved into more deeply in later works by Delillo such as political violence as art (Mao II) and pop-culture journalism becoming mainstream (Running Dog).  It mixes the surreal and the mundane like White Noise, and damnit, read Don Delillo.  He's fucking good.