No Names

by Greg Hewett

Overview

Inspired by the iconic punk scene of the late '70s, No Names blurs the lines of affection and sexuality in a haunting tale of desire, hope, and loss.

Mike and Pete were "no names," two working-class boys lost in the shuffle of their stratified town, brought together by their love of music. By 1978, their punk band was blazing across the underground scene. Now, in 1993, Mike is a hermit living alone on a dot of an island in the North Atlantic. When a mysterious letter from an unlikely fan named Isaac arrives, he's pulled right back into the pain he’s spent over a decade running from.

Isaac longs for an escape from his lonely teenage life. A chance discovery of the No Names’ only album catapults him into an obsession with the godlike rockers and the tantalizing possibility of connection.

As their stories collide, mistakes breed consequences that echo through the decades like the furious reverberations of a power chord.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566897259
Publisher:	Coffee House Press
Publication date:	04/08/2025
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 5.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Greg Hewett is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Blindsight (Coffee House Press, 2016). The recipient of Fulbright fellowships to Denmark and Norway, he has also been a fellow at the Camargo Foundation in France, and is Professor of English at Carleton College. No Names is his first novel. He lives with his husband in Minneapolis.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for No Names

A Goodreads Most Anticipated Literary Fiction of 2025

“Hewett brings a poet's ear for language to a complexly layered story that treats sex, drugs, and rock & roll as simultaneously hard-grained and gorgeous. Scintillating and absolutely unforgettable.” —Julia Kastner, Shelf Awareness

"Each character’s trajectory is resolved in surprising ways, like a minor fugue ending on a major Picardy third, making No Names an enjoyably dense, globe-spanning, philosophy-filled love story with a twist." —Deborah Copperud, Chicago Review of Books

“A tale of friendship, unrequited love and questions of paternity originating with an obscure punk band.” —The New York Times

“An unapologetic display of human nature, allowing for a moral ambiguity in expressions of love between people as well as that of music and artistic creation.” —David Lewis, The Masters Review

“Sometimes a reviewer is defeated in trying to find words to express the depth, complexity, thoughtfulness and love in a story. That’s the case with this debut novel from Greg Hewett. . . . This is a novel that can’t be described. It has to be read.” —Mary Ann Grossman, Pioneer Press

“[An] elegant debut novel. Hewett poignantly conveys the band members’ passion, both for each other and for their music. It’s well worth a spin.” —Publishers Weekly

"A brutally poetic, endlessly captivating exploration of the transcendent power of music and all its impossible contradictions. With punchy, urgent writing, Hewett details the emotional and psychological complexity of fandom, obsession, failure, and the increasingly rare possibility of true connection." —Joe Meno, author of Book of Extraordinary Tragedies

"With a poet’s expansive vision, Greg Hewett writes about all the ways that music crushes the distance between decades and individual lives, especially queer lives in search of orientation points. No Names charms with specificity and, in exchange, offers a life force." —Paul Lisicky, author of Song So Wild and Blue

"Greg Hewett has created a magnificent, tender punk musician who has a little problem with violence, who is innocent in his experience; a boy/man whose music illuminates his passions, his passions fueling his music. The music and Hewett’s terrific hero live on after the final page." —Jane Hamilton, author of The Excellent Lombards

From the Publisher