The Open Mike

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Ever wonder what it would be like to give it all up and head to Greenwich Village to become a singer-songwriter?

In Reo MacGregor’s eyes, his law degree represents a spiritual and aesthetic dead end. He leaves it all behind to follow his music to lower Manhattan’s answer to Paris’s Rive Gauche. There, he enters the bohemian scene of The Open Mike, where a new generation of singer-songwriters meets to sing for, and sometimes about, each other. At first alone amid the sea of guitar cases, he’s inspired by the cafe’s fellow performers and sirens. Homeless and broke, he struggles to honor his calling.

For Reo, survival means chasing burglars down the fire escape, recording sessions uptown with one of New York’s major record producers, or hanging out on the Village’s famed MacDougal Street. But first, he has to earn the respect of the audience.

Rod MacDonald paid his dues in the coffeehouses of Greenwich Village during the 1970s and early ‘80s, and has caught the feel of the time and place in his new novel. For anyone who was in that place and time, it brings back memories vividly. For anyone who wasn’t there, his writing gives a taste of what it was like.

–David Bromberg