A thirty-one-year-old rock'n'roll guitarist decides to get married, only to begin an affair with Gretchen, a New York poet, and finds himself torn between letting his dreams die and having a steady gig. A first novel. Tom Perrotta's first novel, The Wishbones , is all about that much-maligned class of 30-ish men who still live at home with their parents, guys who make furtive love to their girlfriends--if they have them at all--in the basement rec room or the back seat of a car. But Dave Raymond, the protagonist of The Wishbones , doesn't waste his time on Star Trek reruns or computer games; he spends his weekends playing in a wedding band called The Wishbones, using the rapidly receding dream of rock stardom as an excuse to put off growing up. The sudden death of a fellow musician sends Dave into something of a tailspin, however, and in a moment of weakness, he proposes to his longtime girlfriend, Julie. The engagement has hardly been announced when Dave meets Gretchen, a bridesmaid at one of the weddings at which The Wishbones play, and before long he's having serious doubts about his own marital plans. Everybody knows someone like Dave, but a real-life puer aeternus is rarely as entertaining as Perrotta's fictional one. Perrotta wisely surrounds his sad-sack protagonist with an array of entertaining supporting characters, from a joint-smoking priest to one of Dave's band-mates whose life work is a musical based on Kennedy's assassination. By the time The Wishbones winds down to its well-deserved end, readers will be wishing for a second novel from Tom Perrotta soon. Dave works as a courier during the week, but his real passion is playing guitar on weekends with a pretty good New Jersey wedding band. They play in places that sport "the unmistakable odor of mediocrity." Their repertoire includes "a ten-minute medley [of] 'I Will Survive,' 'Boogie-Oogie-Oogie'...capped by a full-length version of 'Y.M.C.A.,' a song that had returned with a vengeance from the land of musical oblivion." For 15 years, Dave has drifted through an on-and-off relationship with the same girl, Julie. Then one night he witnesses the on-stage death of an older lead singer with another band. Shaken, he returns home and without blinking says to Julie, "Let's get married." Then panic sets in. He gets involved with a sexy bohemian poet even as Julie begs him to give up the band, something he had never even remotely considered. At times hilariously funny, at others times wonderfully lyrical, and filled with subtle as well as obvious pleasures, this is an awfully good novel about a young man's reluctance to grow up. Perrotta has published a book of short stories, Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies (LJ 4/15/94). Highly recommended.?David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Just like a good rock 'n' roll song, Perrotta's first novel about the lead guitarist in a New Jersey wedding band is straight-ahead, unpretentious entertainment. After witnessing the onstage collapse of a 73-year-old singer (right in the middle of his deadpan rendition of Madonna's "Like a Virgin"), 31-year-old Dave Raymond starts to feel intimations of his own mortality, and he does the unthinkable. He pops the question to his long-suffering girlfriend, whom he's been dating on and off for 15 years. But as soon as they set the wedding date, Dave embarks on a torrid affair with a New York City poet. Like Nick Hornsby's High Fidelity (1995), The Wishbones is a smart, very funny look at one man's ambivalence toward adulthood and commitment; it also offers a colorful cast of band mates and an obvious affection for its characters and their music. Perrotta is also the author of a well-reviewed collection of short stories, Bad Haircut (1994). Joanne Wilkinson A funny and charming first novel from the author of a highly acclaimed collection of linked short stories, Bad Haircut (1994). Like its predecessor, Perrotta's agreeably manic chronicle of prolonged adolescence is set in suburban New Jersey. It covers a chaotic six months (MaySeptember 1994) in the life of Dave Raymond, who's 31 and still lives with his parents, works as a freelance driver for a courier service, plays guitar for a local band (the title group), and enjoys a more-or-less committed relationship with Julie Muller, the girl he's been ``with'' since their high school days. When Dave impulsively proposes marriage and Julie eagerly accepts, the looming specters of stability and fidelity severely test Dave's fatigued mettle--as he and his fellow Wishbones endure a series of bittersweet misadventures recounted with irresistible tongue-in-cheek deadpan brio. The novel is brimming with sharply observed secondary characters, including bandmates Buzzy (a happily married alcoholic), Stan (ever morosely unlucky in love), and Ian (who's writing a musical about the assassination of JFK); a former doper turned priest; and Gretchen, the girl with whom D