Rick Springfield to publish wacky novel ‘Magnificent Vibration’

Pop star and actor Rick Springfield will publish his first novel, “Magnificent Vibration,� in 2014, and it looks like it’s going to be pretty wacky. That’s despite its mainstream pedigree; “Magnificent Vibration� is coming to us from Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Here’s Touchstone’s description: “[T]he novel portrays a hero who has hit a dead end in his life, but who serendipitously receives a 1-800 phone connection to God via an inscription in a mysterious self-help book that may just give him a shot at saving the planet. Magnificent Vibration is a potent tour de force that is by turns hilarious, poignant, spiritual, over-the-top, and deeply meaningful.�

I don’t doubt that Springfield has the capacity to write well. His memoir, “Late, Late At Night,� was a bestseller. And like everyone else who listened to his hit “Jessie’s Girl,� I learned the word “moot� from him. How many pop stars write songs that send you to the dictionary? Rick Springfield tops that very short list.

“The only good grades I ever got in school before I was kicked out were for creative writing,� Springfield said in his publisher’s announcement. “I thought that fiction might be in my future but then my career took a different path once the Beatles showed me what a blast being in a band could be. Writing my memoir ‘Late, Late at Night’ reminded me how much I love the craft. So I decided to give fiction a shot again. Magnificent Vibration is the result. I’m still not quite sure where it came from, but once I got going, it practically wrote itself. I’ve heard writers I admire speak of that phenomenon, so maybe I’m on the right track.�

Or maybe not. The announcement for “Magnificent Visions� is sending up wacky red flags. The connection to God is a rather tired trope -- but by 1-800 number? Does anyone under the age of 30 know what an 800 number is? That it comes in a self-help book is a little wacky; that he has to save the planet on top of that, well, we’re going far into wacky-land.

Not that it matters what I think, “Magnificent Vibrations� will be published by Touchstone in May 2014.

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