“Even the guitars together and wailing, sounded to me like they were praying,” Collins’ narrator tells us.

And indeed, the Rush Creek Saloon, on the outskirts of town, possesses a kind of all-are-welcome, drop-your-inhibitions-here vibe that you’ll find on a given Sunday morning.

I get the sense that Collins, a writer and editor in Austin, Texas, has spent no small amount of time in the legendary taverns and music halls of her hometown. Her descriptions of bar culture and what it feels like to jam in a band that’s firing on all cylinders are fresh yet familiar.

The novel is told in three voices and opens when a new house band shows up to kick start Rush Creek’s waning business. It looks, at first, like a blessing. But it may just be the end of everything.