Checker and the Derailleurs

Checker and the Deraillurs is a 1988 novel by American novelist Lionel Shriver.

The novel, Shriver's second, follows the life of rock drummer Checker Secretti of the Deraillurs band as he goes through a series of relationships and social exchanges.[1] Shriver described the novel as influenced by her father's strongly religious values, with the plot "derived glaringly from the New Testament".[2]

People magazine reviewed the novel in 1988, concluding that "Shriver's breezy, hip style can be irritating; so can her slips into psychobabble. But Checker and the Derailleurs, like its beguiling protagonist, is hard to forget."[1] Publishers Weekly described the Checker "a boy so radiant that his creator has fallen in love with him. And so has the reader."[3]