Imperfect solo : a dark comedy of random misfortune
(Book)

"Steven Boykey Sidley is an award-winning and multi-shortlisted novelist. His first novel, Entanglement won the UJ Debut Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and MNet Literary Award in South Africa. His second novel, Stepping Out was shortlisted for the UJ Main Fiction Award. Imperfect Solo is his third novel, and has been longlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize in South Africa and selected for Le Grand Livre du Mois, France's most prestigious national literary book club. He currently lives in Johannesburg with his wife, Kate, and their two children."--,Provided by publisher.

"Meyer is filled with dread. His fading musical aspirations, his tyrannical CEO, his ex-wives, his exiting girlfriend, his ageing father, his beloved and troublesome children and his confused and bewildered life all bear witness to the sky that he is convinced will soon fall on his head. And then it does. This is the story of a man adrift in anxiety, ill-fortune and comic mishap, buffeted by the existential and prosaic concerns that modern life in Los Angeles inflicts. Forty years old, caught in the netherworld between the reckless optimism of youth and the resignation of age, Meyer tries to find handrails and ballast. Funny, intellectually probing, and poignant, the story follows the flailing and hapless Meyer seeking hope and redemption as his world unravels around him. Surrounded by the absurdity of an ageing America, the affection of flawed but well-meaning friends and family and the randomness of everyday life, Meyer tries gamely to stay afloat. He must navigate love lost and found and lost, the indignities of ageing, the courage to stand up to assholes and the search for the perfect sax solo. Will Meyer find his grace? Can he, or we, ever?"--Provided by publisher.