“So, you want to be a rock ’n’ roll star?” goes the old song. Not really, if you’re Peggy O’Donnell. Reinventing herself as the more rhythmically named Maggie Morgan, she climbs toward the slippery top of the rock pile as one circumstance led to another.
The debut novel by Milwaukee’s Lisa Kaiser, I Never Wanted to Be a Rock Star: A Novel, jumps around the time line but begins in the Midwest of the ’60s as shy college girl Peggy navigates through a world of male entitlement. Pot and acid enter the scene and folk music is edged out by louder sounds and the call of the wild. But as the reinvented Maggie learns, stardom doesn’t shine so bright when experienced up close. Kaiser will take part in “Author Fest,” 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturday, Dec.1 at Oak Creek Public Library.
