About the book, The Rise of the Mad March 
- Genre: New Adult / Coming of Age / Friendship
- Publisher: Stoney Creek Publishing
- Pages: 374
- Publication Date: May 9, 2025
This one is for all the rock bands who never headlined the big stage, who never needed protection getting to the limo, who never made any money, who never got signed, who had no answer to the cry of “why aren’t you guys famous?” It’s for those who wrote killer songs never heard on the radio, who never made a Rolling Stone cover—or even a mention inside. It’s for those whose collars were always blue, who were promised this and wound up with that, who always opened and never closed.
America, 1973. Christine on lead, Henry on rhythm, Gretchen on bass and Melissa on drums. A chaotic rise, fighting amongst themselves, battling self-destruction, finding their sound, learning to trust, finding a helping hand, overcoming convention (girls can’t play guitar) to become one band, on one tour, for one month – New York to LA and all the stories in between.
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About the Author, Robert Espenscheid Jr. 
Rob Espenscheid, Jr. is a Connecticut native and a 1966 Wake Forest College graduate. After an Army RVN stint in 1969, Rob pulled up stakes and moved to the rural Midwest, settling in southern Iowa in the early 1970s. Prairie life provided a career tuning and repairing pianos from cattle country small towns to collegiate concert halls. When not tinkering on a piano, he can usually be found either on a golf course or working on a manuscript. In 1998, family connections led to a move, with his wife Sharon, to Smithville, Texas.
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My Thoughts 
It’s hard for me to consider a book that takes place after I was born “historical,” but apparently The Rise of the Mad March, which takes place in 1973 is in that class now.
Categorization aside, this book is a fascinating romp through the creation and early touring years of a rock band.
The creation part, which is set in a halfway house, introduces us to Henry the piano tuner who dumps an out-of-fashion beast of a piano on the premises on the condition that he’ll come and repair it as necessary. It’s there that he meets two of the criminal residents, Melissa – mostly referred to as Mel – on drums, and Gretchen on guitar. We meet Christine both before and after these initial coming together scenes, but we meet her separately.
As a musician myself, these early scenes were some of the most interesting for me, because I got to see each character’s first wobbly attempts to play, and then to improve, and finally to mesh with the others.
When the book shifts from the creation of the band to the band touring, I was interested for other reasons. Certainly, the name dropping of all the real people – 70s icons like Billy Crystal and The Ramones – they encountered was fun. Each name was a little like an easter egg, but also a glimpse into what and who resonated with the author. More than that, every now-famous person or group they encountered affected their band’s own future.
And speaking of the author, Robert Espensheid, Jr, has a gift for dialogue and I really appreciated how natural all of the characters sounded, but especially that Mel, Gretchen, and Christine sounded like real women and not manic-pixie-dreamgirl prototypes or mindless, jaded, old-beyond-their-years women. The male characters were drawn equally well.
I also appreciated the interstitial scenes with thirteen-year-old high school journalist Jersey Moon who was given the gift of keeping a tour journal of the band. I identified with her far more than someone in their fifties ought to, even though we didn’t see that much of her.
Overall, this is a solid novel if you like the feel of behind-the-scenes music dramas, or the 70s music scene.
Goes well with: rice pudding and strong coffee, served in heavy porcelain with faint blue or green lines around the rims. Preferably at 2 am in a vintage diner.
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Laurel Rumbroom is the sole living resident of the Underhallow, where dead moths have been showing up at the gates in neatly wrapped packages.
