Praise for Stuck Outside of Phoenix

"A nice nostalgia trip for the grunge generation, and a good story for garage band romantics of any age."

-Thomas Bell, Creative Loafing, Atlanta


"[Edwards] conjures up both Hote’s inner and outer world with concrete detail, down-to-earth dialogue, and unsentimentally but sympathetically drawn characters."

-David Tell, Midtown Messenger, Phoenix, AZ


"This is a three-day-plus tale you’ll find both involving and exciting."

-Dan Hays, Salem Statesman-Journal, Salem, OR


"A story highly worth reading--a necessary text as the Gen Xers move to middle age."

-POD Girl, POD-DY MOUTH

Stuck Outside of Phoenix

by Art Edwards

Josh “Hote” Hotle, twenty-one-year-old bass player, wants to get the hell out of Phoenix.

The time is April of 1990, one year before Seattle’s grunge music scene breaks nationwide, and those with their pop music ears to the ground recognize something big happening in the rainy Northwest. Hote is tuned in to these rumblings, and Seattle poses what might be the perfect solution to his problems: his boring hometown, the catatonic Tempe music scene, the ashes of his recently defunct band, the sweltering Phoenix summer just around the corner. His car is packed with all of his things. He is ready to go. One easy right turn onto the freeway and Hote is a free man.

But a funny thing happens on his way out of town...

In the three days Hote is Stuck Outside of Phoenix, he dates a previously inaccessible love interest, fist-fights his best friend, and plays a dream gig at Tempe’s largest music venue in front of a packed house. Unexpected pleasures and bumps-in-the-road keep Hote volleying from peak to valley, but in the end Hote gets as close as possible to the thing he loves most, the intoxicating pulse and pound of the perfect rock song.