GOMEZ, Jeff 1970-

PERSONAL:

Born 1970, in CA.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Agent—c/o The Permanent Press Publishing Company, 4170 Noyac Rd., Sag Harbor, NY 11963. E-mail—jeff@dontcallhome.com.

CAREER:

Writer and musician. Author and publisher of periodical Our Noise, 1993; musician in group Bespin Fatigues, 1996, and under pseudonym Player Hater, 1997—, including release of compact disc All Summer Wrong, 2003; Hunter College, New York, NY, instructor, 2003.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Our Noise, Scribner (New York, NY), 1995.

Geniuses of Crack, Scribner (New York, NY), 1997.

Young Americans (young adult), Scholastic UK (Leamington Spa, England), 2000.

Attempted Chemistry, Permanent Press (Sag Harbor, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jeff Gomez is a novelist and musician whose works describe relationships, ambitions, and insecurities among young adults who came of age during the 1980s and 1990s. According to New York Times Book Review critic Darcy Cosper, the novels reveal Gomez as "a shrewd observer of the hapless, halfhearted generation formerly known as X."

Gomez's debut novel, Our Noise, centers on a group of college graduates in a small town in Virginia during the early 1990s, including the members of the rock band Bottlecap, an independent record producer, and a pair of would-be publishers. In Publishers Weekly, a reviewer considered passages recalling 1980s pop culture the "most vivid," but found that overall the novel "lacks the insight or humor that might separate the reader's experience … from the apparent dullness of these characters' lives." In Booklist, Joanne Wilkinson judged it a "wry, vivid cultural snapshot of the way twentysomethings live now," and in the Times Literary Supplement, Paul Quinn placed it within the tradition of Douglas Coupland's defining novel Generation X and Richard Linklater's cult hit film Slacker.

Gomez's second novel, Geniuses of Crack, traces the fortunes of the band Bottlecap as they are signed to a recording contract in Los Angeles. As they adjust to life in California and struggle to make the best of their music opportunity, the band members face relationship difficulties, personal jealousies, addictions, and the cold realities of the entertainment business. Wilkinson, again writing in Booklist, found the pacing of the novel uneven, but praised Gomez's "plainspoken and earnest prose." In a favorable review in Kirkus Reviews, a commentator judged it "deftly beguiling" and "a gentle, broadly appealing tale of fumbling love and slick betrayal."

Attempted Chemistry, published in 2002, centers on a complex web of personal and professional relationships among young, hip singles in Manhattan, chiefly describing the romance of writer Daniel Lightman with advertising agency worker Eileen Mark. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly wrote that "redundant plotting makes it difficult to tell the couples apart," but that "Gomez's talent for exploiting the character flaws of his young protagonists produces entertaining scenes." Similarly, a commentator in Kirkus Reviews noted the number of plots contained in the novel, but concluded that "once a single entity emerges from this smooth concoction, it takes on a quiet life of its own, artfully embodying everything from the dissolute to the profound—with a clear preference for the former."

In addition to his works for adults, Gomez has written the novel Young Americans for teenage readers. In the story, a boy relates his feelings of frustration, loneliness, and instability as his single mother moves from relationship to relationship and from state to state. Comparing the novel to Catcher in the Rye, Cherie Gladstone suggested in School Librarian that its "emotionally demanding" material would appeal most to readers over fourteen years old, and in the Times Educational Supplement, Geraldine Brennan praised it as a "deceptively deep 'summer awakening' novel."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1995, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Our Noise, p. 140; August, 1997, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Geniuses of Crack, p. 1878.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 1997, review of Geniuses of Crack, p. 1241; September 15, 2002, review of Attempted Chemistry, pp. 1335-1336.

New York Times Book Review, October 15, 1995, Nick Hornby, review of Our Noise, p. 14; December 29, 2002, Darcy Cosper, review of Attempted Chemistry, p. 17.

Publishers Weekly, July 31, 1995, review of Our Noise, p. 77; September 15, 1997, review of Geniuses of Crack, pp. 52-53; August 12, 2002, review of Attempted Chemistry, pp. 273-274.

School Librarian, autumn, 2000, Cherie Gladstone, review of Young Americans, p. 156.

Times Educational Supplement, July 7, 2000, Geraldine Brennan, review of Young Americans, p. 23.

Times Literary Supplement, June 28, 1996, Paul Quinn, review of Our Noise, p. 23.

ONLINE

Jeff Gomez Home Page,http://dontcallhome.com/ (June 10, 2003).