Author of the internationally acclaimed Lord of the Barnyard, Tristan Egolf has established himself as one of the most audacious and inventive young writers in America. With Skirt and the Fiddle, Egolf has given us a novel that is equal parts headlong plunge into the joys and absurdity of infatuation and a love song to the maddening folly of friendship. Charlie Evans is a brilliant violinist who, embittered by a truly horrendous gig, has kissed the fiddle and the entire straight world good-bye. He lives in a flophouse among misfits like Armless Rob, Emmylou Mattressback, and Tinsel Greetz, an ersatz anarchist and 200-proof charlatan. Mutually antagonistic and joined at the shot glass, Tinsel and Charlie nevertheless make a great team, and when they get a highly illegal, extremely lucrative gig killing rats in the sewers, they are a deadly, unstoppable force. The morning after dissipating their hard-earned money, the boys wake up in a strange (five-star!) hotel room with the worst hangovers of their lives. And when Charlie meets the bewitching Louise, who's offered them shelter - well, then he's in trouble of a whole new sort.