Review: "The Five" by Robert McCammon

This is exactly what I want out of a long novel. The Five by Robert McCammon is not only a big novel, but also a novel with a big heart. If the members of Spinal Tap where in the crosshairs of John Ryder from The Hitcher, this is what it would be like. But replace the humor found in Spinal Tap with a great sense of human worth found within the band members of the band in the book’s title. You come to love these people, despite their different problems and attributes that may annoy you, and it makes the senseless violence that occurs at the hands of a sympathetic madman that much more jarring, which left me emotional stung throughout many of this books violent moments. This is also a great, long love letter to the art of creation for creation’s sake and what it means to come up with an idea out of thin air, and the kind of joy that comes from seeing that idea in its physical form. Even though I do not really understand music like a lot of people do, and get most of my enjoyment from listening to it in my car and seeing how well it would fit into a movie score, I get that sense of joy from creating from different areas, mainly these reviews and hopefully in my fiction someday. But above all that, this is a very pure story that will leave you breathless in places. We begin with The Five eating in a Denny’s on what will probably be their last tour, where the different personalities of the group are established for the books remainder. The de facto leader, Nomad, has a violent streak that shows later in the novel, but does a good job of keeping things together. Ariel, his guitar player, is the spiritual and optimistic center of the group, making her more sympathetic than the others. Berko, the drummer, is a tough-talking lesbian who is the most truthful in the group. Terry, the keyboard player, is the nerd who is to shy to express his true feelings. Mike, the bass player and oldest in the group, has the most experience and wisdom out of them all. And finally George, their manager, is the one most interested in success, but still cares deeply for everyone. After an interview at a local TV station on their tour in Texas, they play their music video, which is critical of the war, and seen by Jeremy Pett, a discharged marine who has lost his everything, who makes it his mission to kill The Five. As the band tours, and members start dropping at the hands of Jeremy, the band gains some national recognition, and begins to question how important it is to follow this road to success, even though there is a sniper rifle waiting at the end of it. It asks hard questions about what has become of entertainment when profit is more important than quality, and how to keep that process pure in the face of businessmen and killers, to very dangerous threats to the bands livelihood. A big novel that is never too didactic but has just the right amount of saccharine moments to make this a very life-affirming horror novel, you’ll love it even if you hate indie rock.

Rating: 5/5