Reading Stacey D’Erasmo’s newest novel, Wonderland, feels like something I’m finding something I thought I gave up looking for: a highly entertaining and readable rock and roll novel.

Reportedly, D’Erasmo read dozens of rock memoirs, from the likes of Patti Smith, Keith Richards, and others. Plus she spent time touring as a roadie with the Scissor Sisters during a European tour. She did her homework in a way that it’s doubtful Salman Rushdie did when he wrote The Ground Beneath Her Feet, and it shows. While the expected sex, drugs, and rock and/or roll, are omnipresent, the book never feels like it’s a cliché.

D’Erasmo’s novel surrounds the comeback tour of Anna Brundage and her band. They had a hit just long enough to fade from most memories, about a decade ago, but they’re embarking on a comeback tour at 44. Brundage’s father was a well-known artist, and she sells a piece of his work to pay for the tour.

There are plenty of drugs: In one passage, she writes, “Instead, I said, ‘Ethan and I have been working on some new arrangements,’ which was a like, but it wouldn’t be by morning. Ethan winked at me. He knew that meant that I had enough coke to get us through the night.” And Anna finds herself in more than one ill-advised one night stand. Another leads to an affair with a married Lebanese man that is friends with a bandmate.

Meltdowns and band drama continue throughout the text of Wonderland, but D’Erasmo lets readers get into the head of Brundage, and that gives a unique POV. She’s not always the most dependable narrator, but concerns and fears are ever prevalent and they draw readers into her story, making one dare yourself not to feel empathy for a rock star fully aware that she isn’t as young and famous as she once was. Anna says at one point, “Privately, I’ve always thought that I got famous, in certain circles, because of what the most astute ears could hear: my failure.” Another time in the book, Anna tells herself, “I almost don’t mind that he copied our duet a few years later, note for note, with Kylie Minogue; it’s a business, after all, and the song is so famous it’s almost public property.”

D’Erasmo’s prose makes the story so absorbing. Wonderland isn’t perfect: the plot lulls at times, but there were a lot of passages I found myself going back over, trying to savor each word of lyrical prose like one would with each note in a song they love.

{Stacey D’Erasmo talks about Wonderland at Town Hall (downstairs) on Wednesday, May 14, 7:30pm, $5 tickets. More info can be found here.}