"Bongwater is one of the coolest books of the year. Hornburg explodes the whole grunge mythos by taking it out of the realm of the flash photo spread and giving us the seamy, unimaginative days upon days of fear and helplessness." -Alternative Press "Michael Hornburg's Bongwater is a swift, exhilarating read, and beneath all its interesting surface decadence is a surprisingly sweet-natured love story." -Madison Smartt Bell "An empathetic tour of lives on the edge. Michael Hornburg's evident affection for the strung-out makes Bongwater an unlikely but successful fusion of cynicism and good-heartedness. An esthetic appreciation, unexpectedly charming."-Ted Conover "Hornburg rewinds back through the wreckage of the 90s grungeoisie to spin this smart, wistful tale of small town indie redemption."-ID Magazine (UK) "No one writing today walks the line between glamour and pathos better than Michael Homburg. Being young and lost in America has never looked so good, or so terrifying. Bongwater is at once gorgeous, witty and sad." -Karen Karbo "Ridiculously well written, a roller coaster ride through slacker sleaze and druggy romance, which is never less than riveting. Touching poetic stuff." -New Musical Express (UK) "Michael Hornburg's first novel is more exciting and heartfelt than the preachy and clumsy work of some youthful contemporaries. Fast, funny, bold, and very well-written."-Portland Tonic "This is no grunge bodice-ripper, it sticks close to the theory that life is never simple and people always suck. Bongwater is written from first-hand experience, simple prose touched with just enough writerly embroidery to seize the imagination. The music is peripheral, the real sound is a silent scream." -SeattIe Weekly "Ministers of Disco in search of Ambassadors of Love, the 'heavy drapery' of Portland, Oregon, the mannerisms and malaise of the flippantly hip-in Bongwater, Michael Hornburg nails it with wit, verve, and a comic timing as tight as a Bootsy Collins bass line." -Michael Parker "A fast, trippy bounce. Looking for shortcuts to American nirvana, Michael Hornburg's friendly Oregonians find everything but." -Michael Drinkard "Michael Hornburg writes with a straightforward style that is at once graceful and hard-edged. No innocence here; Bongwater is street life writ large by someone who obviously knows his stuff." -Kim Wozencraft

Bongwater is a novel that wavers along the solar eclipse of the American Dream, a neo-Beat, grungeoisie love story that has all the authenticity and none of the pretension of its forerunners, a book that will be for the slacker generation of the nineties what Bright Lights, Big City was for the wannabe eighties.

Young, rebellious, and vulnerable, Michael Hornburg's unforgettable characters trace the subtle outlines of a misunderstood generation. Moving from Portland to New York City and back again, and written in precise, startlingly original prose, Bongwater is in the tradition of the Beat classics The Subterraneans and The Dharma Bums.