John and Jenny, the brilliant and charming on-again/off-again couple who play in the fictitious fledgling indie band the Weird Sisters, will break up or not—as a couple or as the principal members of a getting-great band. Reconciled after an infidelity-that-can-be-explained or at least atoned for, King II opens as the Weird Sisters are on tour during the fateful day Kurt Cobain's suicide is announced. This undeniably hilarious sequel pits the little jangle pop band we're rooting for against an evil record label CEO'd by a guy who believes in aliens, various nefarious bookers and sound guys, drunken "punters," and lunatics and maniacs galore that Jenny, John, bassist Rob, and new and uproariously ridiculous new drummer Raleigh encounter on the zany road.A quintessential L.A. novel as well, King II finds John, the not-so-humble but endearing narrator, confronted by yet another dilemma of the femme fatale kind, as well as grappling with his deepening love for and attachment to Jenny, his beautiful girlfriend and bandmate and former piano prodigy.As II ends (with John getting a job as a P.A. on perhaps the most ludicrous video shoot in rock history), it sets up The Hollow Crown, a third installment—for Fredrick, without meaning to, and almost accidentally, has written a goddam trilogy.

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