Publishers Weekly
05/20/2024
Riggs’s lusty first novel follows an aspiring singer-songwriter in Nashville’s booze-soaked music scene during the mid-2000s. Shortly after graduating from the University of Michigan, Alison “Al” Hunter takes a job working the door at a hip Nashville club called The Venue. On the surface, she seems to be having a good time scoring drinks, drugs, sex, and guest list spots, but underneath she’s full of melancholy. Her old college flame Nick, lead singer of a buzzy new band, has pretty much moved on from her, and she’s struggling to write songs after a disastrous open-mic performance a month earlier. The plot thickens when Nick shows up at The Venue one stormy night, though it leads to a predictable denouement concerning Al’s determination to find her own voice. Riggs is best in her sardonic depictions of her protagonist’s milieu, delineating Nashville’s desperate strivers, hipster know-it-alls, and slick industry insiders, all of whom are outnumbered by the huge crowds that show up for cover bands (“People are suckers for nostalgia, for the VH1 days, for getting drunk with a purpose on an otherwise dreary night”). Music lovers will devour this. Agent: Andrianna deLone, CAA. (July)
From the Publisher
Advance praise for Lo Fi:
“This book simmers with one-line zingers that boil into a can't-put-down stunner of a storyline that’ll have you speed reading to the last page.” —Marie Claire
“Like a sultry country song itself, Lo Fi sees Hunter navigate her way through dating, heartbreak, and difficult but transformational decisions.” —W Magazine
“Lo Fi is a smart and sexy literary rom com that will have you flying through the pages, rooting for Al Hunter as she navigates professional mishaps, sexual escapades, new and complicated friendships.” —GenTwenty
“Riggs’ novel is vital, electric. Al is magnetic, and readers will root for her, eagerly following her triumphs and her heartaches. . . . A dynamic rock song of a novel from an exciting debut author.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Music lovers will devour this.” —Publishers Weekly
“Lo Fi has the intimacy of a Sally Rooney novel and the raw yearning of a Lucinda Williams song. A gorgeous, accomplished novel.” —Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses and The End of the World is a Cul de Sac
“Swoony, sexy, and melancholy. . . a tattered love letter to youth, music, and Nashville. A portrait of our ‘lo fi’ days, before we come fully into focus, before we know we are worthy of being heard. I loved it.” —Daisy Alpert Florin, author of My Last Innocent Year
“Fabulous . . . perfectly captures the angst and cringeworthy predicaments of navigating hard love and huge heartbreak in your twenties. Music nerds won’t be able to turn away, but you’ll love it even if you’ve never owned a record in your life.” —Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane
“A backstage pass to late aughts Nashville. . . . A stunning portrait of youth and all its fun yet fraught possibilities, with characters whose chemistry’s as strong as their drinks. Liz Riggs’s prose pulses like the live music in her novel.” —Avery Carpenter Forrey, author of Social Engagement
Kirkus Reviews
2024-05-04
An unmoored 23-year-old navigates the dazzling, grungy Nashville music scene.
Alison Hunter has just arrived in Nashville after graduating from the University of Michigan; her parents are missionaries in Korea, so her only familial tether to Tennessee is her bohemian aunt Izzy. Al lives with her bold best friend, Sloane, and stamps wrists at the door of a historic club called The Venue, where artists like Leonard Cohen and The Shins have performed. Al is still reeling from a recent embarrassment: a failed open mic performance, sung totally out of tune. She wants to be a musician, but she’s encountering persistent writer’s block, unable to come up with her own melodies to fit the angsty lyrics she’s writing. She’s haunted by a former flame from Michigan, an up-and-coming artist named Nick in a band called Flirtation Device; he won’t give her the time of day, except when it’s convenient for him, and he comes floating in and out of Nashville without any warning. As Al works alongside the brooding, mysterious Julien at the door and The Venue’s sexy bartender, Colt, she must navigate her complicated relationship to all three men. Lonely and hurting, Al spirals in a series of self-destructive behaviors. Set in what seems like the visual and musical aesthetic of the early 2010s—Hot Topic, beanies, Warped Tour, physical CDs, Vampire Weekend, Facebook—Riggs’ novel is vital, electric. Al is magnetic, and readers will root for her, eagerly following her triumphs and her heartaches. The story works best as an examination of young adulthood: of the forces that ground or unsettle people, and the climactic moments that demand introspection. Less successful is Riggs’ commitment to voicing a version of musicality through her prose; the story is peppered with clunky, contrived metaphors—a paper cut “as thin as the high E string on the guitar” and a box sticking out of a bag “like an extra syllable that doesn’t fit the rhythm of a song.”
A dynamic rock song of a novel from an exciting debut author.
