Songs from a Voice: Being the Recollections, Stanzas and Observations of Abe Runyan, Song Writer and Performer - Paperback

by Baron Wormser (Author)

No one can speak for Bob Dylan except Bob Dylan. Fiction, however, has other thoughts and in Songs from a Voice, Being the Recollections, Stanzas and Observations of Abe Runyan, Song Writer and Performer Baron Wormser has created a narrator who offers a first-person take on the years that begin in the spaces of the upper Midwest and wind up in the streets of Greenwich Village. As a parallel figure, Abe puts forward a chain of circumstances, influences and predilections that lead the reader into the mystery of where one era-changing artist came from. The story that is told by Abe is not an echo of facts but an evocation of what went into the making of a musical soul, right down to the quatrains that he writes as part of his tale and as lyrical notes to himself. As a novel, Songs from a Voice is a homage, investigation, sly nod and, ultimately, an affirmation of the strength of one man's imagination.

"Baron Wormser's brave novel Songs from a Voice should join Todd Haynes's film I'm Not There, Michael Gray's monumental Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, and Dylan's Chronicles, Volume One in the canon of works-inspired-by-and-(mostly)about-Dylan. It reads like Theme Time Radio Hour with quatrains taking the place of songs and terrific lists abounding. Narrator Abe Runyon riffs on and fills out Dylan's Hibbing and Greenwich Village years in a voice that sounds hauntingly similar to present-day Bob. Along the way, snakes speak in rhyme and roads teach about time. It's the best kind of fan fiction: a labor of love that moves beyond its inspiration to touch upon America, music, poetry, and why art matters."

David Gaines, Author of In Dylan Town: A Fan's Life (University of Iowa Press)

"Baron Wormser's Abe Runyan draws Dylan's uncanny traces into relief with such compelling nuance that they fade into an entirely unique American voice, subsumed into the thin air of persuasion. With aching and evocative prose, what rises from the page is a Bildungsroman entirely its own, tangled up in blue, with a soul as unique and musical and convincing as Robert Johnson's devil."

David Ryan, author of Animals in Motion and Bookmarked: Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano

Author Biography

Baron Wormser is the author of nine books of poetry, a poetry chapbook, and is the co-author of two books about teaching poetry. His memoir, The Road Washes Out in Spring, is an account of finding poetry while living off the grid for over two decades in Maine. His fiction includes a book of short stories and two novels. His essay collection Legends of the Slow Explosion includes essays that appeared in Best American Essays 2014 and 2018. He teaches in the Fairfield University MFA program and is the Founding Director of Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching in Franconia, New Hampshire. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Wormser served as poet laureate of Maine from 2000 to 2005 and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Maine at Augusta in 2005. Learn more at baronwormser.com.