Till the Wheels Fall Off

From roller rinks and record players to coin-operated condom dispensers and small-town mobsters, Till the Wheels Fall Off is a novel about an unconventional childhood among the pleasures and privations of the pre-digital era.

It’s the late 1980s, and Matthew Carnap is awake most nights, afflicted by a potent combination of insomnia and undiagnosed ADHD. Sometimes he gazes out his bedroom window into the dark; sometimes he wanders the streets of his small southern Minnesota town. But more often than not, he crosses the hall into his stepfather Russ’s roller rink to spend the sleepless hours lost in music. Russ’s record collection is as eclectic as it is extensive, and he and Matthew bond over discovering new tunes and spinning perfect skate mixes. Then Matthew’s mother divorces Russ; they move; the roller rink closes; the twenty-first century arrives. Years later, an isolated, restless Matthew moves back to his hometown. From an unusual apartment in the pressbox of the high school football stadium, he searches his memories, looking for something that might reconnect him with Russ.

With humor and empathy, Brad Zellar (House of Coates) returns with a discursive, lo-fi novel about rural Midwestern life, nostalgia, neurodiversity, masculinity, and family—with a built-in soundtrack.

Publication date: July 12, 2022

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25

Page count: 328 pages

ISBN: 9781566896399

Brad Zellar has worked as a writer and editor for daily and weekly newspapers, as well as for regional and national magazines. A former senior editor at City Pages, The Rake, and Utne Reader, Zellar is also the author of Suburban World: The Norling Photos, Conductors of the Moving World, House of Coates, and Driftless. He has frequently collaborated with the photographer Alec Soth, and together they produced seven editions of The LBM Dispatch, chronicling American community life in the twenty-first century. Zellar’s work has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, The Believer, Paris Review, Vice, Guernica, Aperture, and Russian Esquire. He spent fifteen years working in bookstores and was a co-owner of Rag & Bone Books in Minneapolis. He currently lives in Saint Paul.

Finalist for the 2023 Minnesota Book Award for Novel and Short Story

“This tender, circuitous novel is a lesson in dedicated music listening, but also in how music brings together two remote individuals in unexpected ways. . . . A beautiful, captivating novel of memory, connection, and music.”

—S. Kirk Walsh, The Star Tribune

“More than a mere nostalgia trip, Brad Zellar’s contemplative, quietly powerful new novel considers the tiny utopias that come from nowhere and dissipate unceremoniously in our pasts.”

—Patrick Rapa, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Thoughtful, insightful, well-crafted, and just plain pleasurable.”

—Keith Harris, Racket

“A thoughtful meditation on the intersections of analog and digital. . . . This affectionate and endearing trip down memory lane is sure to resonate with readers.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Like listening to a favorite album at different times in your life, the novel offers the alternating effects of revelation and affirmation when life’s pivotal moments require a soundtrack, and Zellar is a master at both.”

—Frank Randall, Rain Taxi Review of Books

“The writing is hypnotic and memorable. Its imagery is stunning, and its descriptions are evocative. . . . An affecting, introspective novel that embraces the beauty of memory and the power of resilience.”

—Peter Dabbene, Foreword Reviews

“Like a Gen X Larry McMurtry, Brad Zellar takes us on a tour of forgotten America and finds truth and beauty in the least likely of places. Till the Wheels Fall Off isn't a ghost story, but after reading it, it's hard to shake the feeling that you've been spending time with a spirit we forgot about long ago.”

—Jason Diamond

“Zellar is a sorcerer and a saint, and the characters he sends careening around this novel are mystical and strange and set in my craw like another of those melodies from my youth. Which is to say, I’ll never forget this book.”

—Peter Geye