Tim Thornton's portrait of a pop culture obsession is so convincing that one can't help wishing that his fictional alt rock band actually existed, or suspecting that they did. The Alternative Hero is a weirdly compelling portrait of fanatic fandom which reads like High Fidelity at high volume.

The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.

Eat, drink and remarry is my motto.

It's the cynics who never get married.

Delia's arms were inscribed with a grid of self- inflicted wounds, an intricate text of self-loathing

I think it's dangerous to think you know what you're writing. I usually don't know, and usually I just discover it in the course of writing. I envy those writers who can outline a beginning, a middle, and end. Fitzgerald supposedly did it. John Irving does. Bret Easton Ellis does. But for me, the writing itself is the process of discovery. I can't see all that far ahead.

Sometimes I think the difference between what we want and what we're afraid of is about the width of an eyelash.