The Unexpected Salami

The Unexpected Salami, Laurie Gwen Shapiro, Algonquin Books, 1999

Rachel Ganelli, a neurotic Italian-Jewish New Yorker, is tired of the Big Apple, so she moves to Australia, and hooks up with a middle-level rock band called The Tall Poppies, becoming the semi-girlfriend of Colin, the bass player. One day, while shooting their latest video, Stuart, the drummer, is shot and killed, and it's all caught on tape. Rachel decides that maybe now is a good time to return to New York, especially after her mother, who saw it on CNN, calls and demands her immediate return.

About a month later, Rachel runs into Stuart in a Manhattan coffee shop. It was all a scam, the intention being that the band would ride the resulting wave of publicity up the charts. It worked, to the point where the band is chosen as a last-minute opening act fill in for a couple of dates on an INXS American tour, including one at Madison Square Garden.

Along the way, Rachel and a couple of friends help Stuart get off heroin cold turkey; Rachel gets put on the jury for a murder case right at the time that Colin is in New York, but they do get a conjugal visit; for a time, Rachel's "price" for not blowing the whistle to the Australian authorities is a wedding ring from Colin.

This story is marvelous. Shapiro actually lived in Australia for a year, so she knows how to do the Australian point of view. It's a good rock and roll novel, with a little Woody Allen neurosis included, and is well worth reading.