Alex V. Cook is an author, journalist and music critic living Baton Rouge, LA. His work has appeared in The Believer, The Oxford American, DownBeat, Paste Magazine, Hails and Horns and The Wire, and his first collection of essays Darkness, Racket and Twang: Essential Listening from the Fringes of Popular and Unpopular Culture was published by Side Cartel in 2006. His next book about Louisiana juke joints and dancehalls is forthcoming from LSU Press. He blogs furiously at alexvcook.com.
I finished off The Last Novel while sitting poolside suffering a monstrous earache, the kind that feels like someone pushed an egg into your ear while you were asleep and…