The No Name Guitar
By Jake La Botz
A teenager learns a forgotten album from his dead uncle’s homemade cassette, then records it as his own. A junkie in a skid-row hotel finds that no one in Hollywood can see him. In Chicago’s Uptown, a bar-band singer hands over every cent he has for a guitar that plays itself.
The musically minded strivers and misfits of The No Name Guitar are all trying to make a name for themselves in a world where music isn’t a real job. These tragicomedies follow them into hunger, addiction, life on the margins, sometimes into fame, and sometimes past the edge of the real.
Jake La Botz is a touring musician and fiction writer. He is the author of Your Place in This World (Cornerstone Press, 2026). He lives in St. Paul, MN with his wife and youngest daughter.