The premise of the book is that Norman Fayrewether was hired to write a biography of composer Simon Silber. While compiling the biography, Norman discovered that Silber was eccentric at best or a lunatic at worst. He wrote the “dirt” as liner notes for a collection of Silber’s works, and this novel is the liner notes.

Silber’s father determined to make his son a great composer and raised him in a strict, bizarre manner that failed in its objective but convinced Simon that he was indeed great. His works, with such names as Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects (which contains long pauses broken by odd noises) and Sonata for the Unaccompanied Gong are strange and impossible to listen to. Simon himself goes through long bouts of intolerance to any noise and, near the end of his life composes works that are visual but silent. He also periodically kills one of his neighbor’s dogs. In the end, he (supposedly) commits suicide and leaves his money to his twin brother Scooter.

Norman is almost as strange as Simon. He writes aphorisms and doesn’t realize that he’s as pathetic in his field as Simon is in his. The whole novel is an account of a pathetic loser written by a pathetic loser. There are hints at the end of the book that indicate Simon didn’t commit suicide but really killed his brother and took over his identity. Norman, of course doesn’t realize this. Norman is hired as the curator of the Simon Silber museum, which nobody ever visits.

Kelli recommended this book to me as very funny, and I really, really wanted to like it. But I just couldn’t. I found it tiresome and annoying and rarely read more than a few pages at a time. It gave me an occasional chuckle, but not often enough to make it worth reading. I think, in order for me to laugh at somebody, I have to like the person, and I didn’t like anybody in this book. I just wanted them to die and get it over with.