The Hellhound Sample

Written by one of rock's most renowned word-slingers, Ralph Gleason Award winner Charles Shaar Murray, The Hellhound Sample is a serious contender for the title of the definitive rocknroll novel. Its focus is on the Moon family, an African-American musical dynasty spanning three generations. At its head sits James Blue Moon, legendary blues guitarist from the Mississippi: his daughter, Venetia Moon, is a soul diva, and his grandson, Calvin, a millionaire rapper, producer and mogul. But the Moon clans seamless influence on pop culture masks a family riven with discord. Venetia hasnt spoken to her dad in years, and has fallen out of love with her music, too, churning out lucrative but vacuous jingles and adverts. Meanwhile her son, Calvin, is living a double-life. By day a paragon of hip-hop machismo, his label specializing in often violent, homophobic and misogynistic recordings, by night Calvin frequents rent-boys and gay clubs. And people are starting to talk - a situation that threatens to endanger both his livelihood and life expectancy. James Blue himself is having a worse time still, having just been diagnosed with liver cancer. Blue realizes its time to put his house in order, pull together his dispersed family, and make one final record. Looking to kill both birds with the same stone, he contacts his daughter and grandson and invites them to record with him, opening up a can of worms sealed for decades. Enter hapless and affable British rock legend Mick Hudson, trailing a string of addictions, divorces and demons as he staggers through his fourth decade of musical stardom. On top of all this, the troubled troubadours have to deal with murderous homophobic yardies, teenage daughters, imposing managers, an increasingly curious media, their own sizable egos, Robert Johnson (or at least his ghost) and