title: How the Mistakes Were Made: A Novel
author:  Tyler McMahon 
description: In McMahon's debut novel, punk rock refugee Laura Loss narrates the whirlwind rise and fall of the Mistakes, a Seattle band that emerged from the early 90s grunge scene and briefly became rock and roll legends. Settled in Seattle after spending her teen years on the road with her brothers hardcore band, Laura wryly ponders her limited options, since "jamming in basements and storage lockers was cool when youre a kid but pathetic in adulthood." When Sean and Nathan, a misfit duo from Montana, show up at her door, the three musicians gel with a do-it-yourself chemistry, and their unlikely ascent to stardom begins. Though the narrative is engaging, there are several off-notes. Too much attention is given to Sean's synaesthesia (a neurological condition that causes him to see his music as colors), and the romance between Laura and Sean never becomes credible enough to make the ensuing love triangle a genuine source of tension. However, McMahon conveys the exhilaration and vitality of an outsiders' music scene and successfully evokes a time and place where kids who followed their own guitar-powered soundtracks were briefly able to crank up the volume for the world to hear. (Oct.) -Publishers Weekly
zlib_text: Contents:
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
  Chapter 1
  ^ »
  T yler Fortune hated losing a fight, and today he'd lost big time. Now he was going to pay for it,
  and the price was … marriage.
  His sole consolation was that he'd relinquish his freedom on his own terms. He'd be damned if he
  let his parents corral him into marrying a snooty Tucson debutante or one of their wealthy friends'
  daughters.
  Impatiently, he shoved another videotape into the VCR. The custom-made entertainment center
  was built into one mahogany-paneled wall of his office on the fifth floor of the Fortune Building.
  Hitting the play button on the remote, he sat down again and leaned back in his chair to view the
  screen over the wide knuckles of his interlocked fingers.
  A woman wearing more makeup than most cosmetic counters stocked beamed into the camera and
  introduced herself in an irritating falsetto. He groaned aloud. This wife-hunting business was hard,
  nerve-racking work, and probably a waste of time.
  Tyler deeply resented lost mi