Let Go and Go on and on

Praise for Tim Kinsella's The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self-Defense:

"For all this novel's depth of story, and that story's grip and wealthy undercurrents, Tim Kinsella's rushing, trippily meticulous prose is so exciting to follow that the story seems as much the novel's soundtrack and topography as it is the point. A thorough and wildly distinctive read."—Dennis Cooper, author of The Marbled Swarm

"On a number of occasions, it's shit-your-pants brilliant. Kinsella, who has been a principal member of a number of Chicago bands, is already something of royalty in the Chicago indie music scene. Consider Self-Defense the first entry in a case for similar esteem in indie lit."—Newcity Lit

Cult actress Laurie Bird's story is told in a second-person narrative, creating a fictional blurring of what little is known of her biography with her acting roles as cross-country drag-racing moll in Two Lane Blacktop, champion cockfighter's wife in Cockfighter, and mansion-dwelling Hollywood starlet in Annie Hall, and unravels in a bathtub where she commits suicide at the age of twenty six.

Tim Kinsella's first novel The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self-Defense was named among the "Best Chicago Books of 2011" by CBS Chicago, and listed on Flavorpill's "Most Exciting New Books." Kinsella has an MFA in writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since forming in 1996, Kinsella's band Joan of Arc and its related projects have released more than thirty records.