The Forty Watt Flowers
In its overnight journey from Philadelphia to Atlanta, the Silver Crescent pauses on a long siding just outside Athens, GA to allow two freight trains to rumble pass by on the main line. I think it quaint that a southern community named itself after a major city in Greece and while a passenger many times on the train myself, I wondered what life would be like in what seemed to be, at least from my roomette’s window, a sleepy, dusky town.

Little did I know Athens was – and still is – not only the home of the University of Georgia, but a hubbub of rock n’ roll, blues, jazz, and all alternative music in-between. It is the birthplace of such famed groups as R.E.M and the B-52’s. But not much has been written about the electrifying culture and broiling atmosphere until two years ago when C. M. Subasic, a talented Canadian playwright, wrote the definitive novel about starting a band and making it big on the music scene. The Forty Watt Flowers is a refreshingly frank exposé of Athen’s musical sub-culture, delving into the complexities of what it takes for a band to make it big.

A transplant from the north, young Trisha is relatively new in the community. Struggling with deep hurt, guilt, and misunderstanding, she searches for importance in her life beset by family and boyfriend issues. In her quest to create “something meaningful,” she decides to start an altrock band, bringing together four other young women; each one a unique individual with her own set of divergent issues, quirks, talents, and problems: a black Canadian bass player; a hard-nosed Latino drummer; a spoiled, selfish “southern belle”; and a shy, withdrawn, wealthy recluse who breaks out of her shell to become their lead singer. Together they form the Forty Watt Flowers in the hopes of lighting up the music world with their talents.

The band becomes a mini-cosmos of creativity mixed with complex relationships that threaten to tear it apart.-Trisha is their leader who, mired in her own insecurities, is the most mature of its members. As the well-constructed plot progresses from the band’s first rehearsal in a beer-soaked seedy garage to their dreamed-of gig at the prestigious 40 Watt Club, she becomes their leader, mentor, band-promoter, and problem solver.

This is a well-tuned debut novel from a very talented, seasoned writer. A noted editor and publishing consultant in her own right, Subasic couples her easy-read writing style with a vast knowledge of music, empathetically probing in-depth the finer points of inter-personal relationships. Writing with a light touch and often a jaundiced tongue-in-cheek, she uniquely twists common phrases into fresh, new usages. Her style, not quite hip-hop jivey, is pert and to the point. Through her characters, she often waxes eloquent philosophies, and slams home poignant observations like a musician playing finely-tuned instruments. There are only two flaws in this otherwise exceptional story: some of the lyrics are hard-to-grasp and somewhat arcane, and some of the songs lack basic structure.

However, taken as a whole, The Forty Watt Flowers is, in totality, a literary song unto itself and well worth reading.