A raw, edgy, emotional novel about growing up punk and living to tell. The Clash. Social Distortion. Dead Kennedys. Patti Smith. The Ramones. Punk rock is in Emily Black's blood. Her mother, Louisa, hit the road to follow the incendiary music scene when Emily was four months old and never came back. Now Emily's all grown up with a punk band of her own, determined to find the tune that will bring her mother home. Because if Louisa really is following the music, shouldn't it lead her right back to Emily? Punk rocker Emily Black’s daddy is a guitar player, but he set his music aside to raise her on his own after her mother disappeared. Emily grew up reasonably together and rebellious in a small Wisconsin farming town notable for its outlaw music venue, River’s Edge, where she and her best friend graduate from sleeping with potential “rock gods” to starting a band of their own. Their rapid success is the standard-issue rock-and-roll dream, but debut novelist Kuehnert makes it new by marshaling tonic energy and 100-proof candor to create a high-speed, switchback tale. Although the plotline about Emily’s miserable mother and die-hard father is almost too over-the-top, it adds dimension to Emily’s rocketing rise and painful plummet. And Kuehnert is acidly incisive and full-out entertaining as she tells a classic tale of an artist coming into her own, revels in raw punk-rock power, dramatizes just how difficult it is for women musicians to be taken seriously, and reveals that the scariest thing isn’t getting up on stage but lowering your guard and falling in love. --Donna Seaman "Kuehnert's love of music is apparent on every page in this powerful and moving story. Her fresh voice makes this novel stand out in the genre, and she writes as authentically about coming of age as she does punk rock." -- Charles R. Cross, New York Times bestselling author of Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain "Teeth. Punk. Combat boots. Attitude. Feminism. Family. Girls with guitars. Relationships that jack you up. Sharp things of the not-good kind. Friendships. Love.... It's all here; it's all pure and real." -- Melissa Marr, New York Times bestselling author of Ink Exchange "A fierce and wild ride." -- Laura Wiess, author of Such a Pretty Girl "A wonderfully written andevocative story of a mother and daughter parted by circumstance and joined by music. I heartily recommend it." -- Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting Stephanie Kuehnert got her start writing bad poetry about unrequited love and razor blades in eighth grade. In high school, she discovered punk rock and produced several D.I.Y. feminist zines. She received her MFA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago and lives in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Ballads of Surburbia and I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone . Learn more at StephanieKuehnert.com.