Manhattan on the Rocks
Manhattan on the Rocks by Michael Musto is a first edition novel published by Holt in 1989, featuring 298 pages in English. This work presents a narrative that delves into the nightlife of New York City, focusing on the lives of young urbanites navigating the glamorous yet jaded nightclub scene. The story is told through the eyes of Vincent DiBlasio, a publisher who observes the antics of his trendy friends while grappling with his own identity and aspirations.
Readers will encounter a cast of characters that includes Starla Rogers, a mentor and lover, Favio la Ronde, a party-goer struggling with addiction, and Vivien, an AIDS activist who stands out for her social awareness. The novel captures the complexities of these relationships against a backdrop of entertainment and superficiality, reflecting on themes of voyeurism and celebrity culture. Musto’s distinctive prose style adds a layer of energy to the narrative, although it may challenge some readers with its intensity.
Official synopsis Publisher
From Publishers Weekly
Best known as the irrepressible entertainment columnist for the Village Voice , Musto has written a first novel that reads like a ragtag heap of mean-spirited gossip columns. Purporting to explore the well-trodden terrain of New York’s supposedly glamorous nightclub scene, this is yet another look at jaded young urbanites whose banal lives make for torturous reading. Musto’s hyperactive prose quickly becomes exhausting, while his characters’ trendiness, middlebrow snobbery and rancid narcissism sink the novel into a midden of unreadability. Narrator Vincent DiBlasio, publisher of Manhattan on the Rocks magazine, declares he is a voyeur at clubs, a watcher of the fun and madness, not a participant but a soulful Proustian chronicler. A nice Italian boy from Queens, the Dartmouth dropout devotes his magazine to his trendy friends, who have made him into a minor celebrity. DiBlasio’s gang includes buxom beauty Starla Rogers, who becomes his mentor and lover; Favio la Ronde, a drugged-out party animal on the skids; and Vivien, a fervent AIDS activist and the only character with anything approaching a social conscience. Musto has some nice moments describing DiBlasio’s odd family, but these scenes hardly make up for the novel’s basic meretriciousness.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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