Opus 21 Descriptive Music for the Lower Kinsey Epoch of the Atomic Age, a Concerto for a One-man Band, Six Arias for Soap Operas, Fugues, Anthems & Barrelhouse

About this book

The work is a self‑conscious, experimental novel that folds philosophy, satire and a thinly veiled autobiographical thread into a single, sprawling narrative. Its opening pages announce that the characters and events are largely fictitious, positioning the author as an unreliable guide and inviting the reader to decide what counts as “real.” The story begins in a doctor’s office where the narrator, a writer in his mid‑forties, discovers a suspicious growth in his throat and embarks on a series of medical appointments, street‑level observations of Manhattan, and meandering reflections on mortality, celebrity deaths, and the absurdities of modern life. Structured like a musical composition, Scherzo, Tarantella, Andante, Rondo, Coda, the text moves from clinical dialogue to a cab ride, a hotel bar, and a series of interior monologues that blend the mundane with the existential.

The voice is unmistakably mid‑century modernist, laced with the clipped, journalistic rhythm of 1940s‑50s New York magazines and the occasional lyrical flourish that echoes the book’s musical subtitle. Philip Wylie’s prose is dense, witty, and often digressive, reflecting the era’s fascination with psycho‑analysis, the rise of mass media, and the looming specter of atomic‑age anxieties. Readers who enjoy metafictional experiments, philosophical musings on truth versus illusion, and a vivid portrait of post‑war urban America will find this novel rewarding, especially those who appreciate a narrative that treats the act of storytelling itself as a kind of concerto.