TIGER IN A TRANCE

Ludington revisits the magical, musical mystery tour that was the Grateful Dead in this rock novel–cum–coming-of-age story about a young man who joins the legion of fans that followed the band cross-country. Prep school dropout Jason Burke is the first-person narrator, dealing drugs, selling T-shirts and worshipping the guitar solos of Jerry Garcia on the group's 1985 tour. In a swirl of partying and sex, Jason pairs up first with Jane, the alluring girlfriend of a fellow dealer, then becomes more seriously involved with 17-year-old Melanie, a precocious, one-armed groupie. The novel turns darker when Jason learns that another brief rendezvous with a Dead fan has produced a child, and then darker still when he falls into the abyss of heroin addiction. The rock material is solid and colorful—Ludington affectionately but unsentimentally captures the Dead scene—and the portrayal of Jason's addiction is haunting, especially when he abandons an old family friend who is dying and wanders into a seedy part of the Bay area in search of a score. Jason, despite his aimlessness, is a serious, thoughtful character. His family history—his journalist father was killed in Syria when he was a boy—gives the novel extra depth, taking it beyond the tropes of the road novel. This is a searching, accomplished debut. Agent, Peter Steinberg. (Aug. 19)