The Underwood

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

The Underwood shows a poise and skill unusual in a first novel, much
less one purportedly written in a three-day period. It won its young
Toronto author the 20th annual three-day writing contest, and let us
hope that his next work will build on the skills shown here.

Young piano player Foster Lutz makes his home in a down-at-the-heels
hotel. He takes his meals there. He rarely ventures beyond its walls. He
is given the chance to entertain in the hotel’s lounge and enlists (or
is himself enlisted by) a garrulous grass-dealer-cum-bassist named Max.
Add to this duo a dishwasher-drummer from Paris named Antoine and you
get an unlikely trio who, nevertheless, play some fine music. But, of
course, it all breaks down. There is an overdose; there is an arrest.
There is also some girl trouble. Could all this have been written in
three days? Remarkable. Recommended.