Sixteen irreverent and inventive stories that riff on rock and rap mythology to envisage alternate paths for music legends who died young.

What if Biggie Smalls had survived the assassin’s bullets and reinvented hip-hop with the help of an avant-garde luminary? If Amy Winehouse had shaken off her demons and channeled her inner Barbra Streisand into a new life on a tropical island? If Jeff Buckley had been pulled alive from the Mississippi by a devilish hand and become a pioneer of Southern black metal? With accompanying illustrations by Jeb Loy Nichols, Mark Swartz’s stories imagine what might have happened to these stars and more—including Jimi Hendrix, Gram Parsons, Janis Joplin, Marvin Gaye, Lhasa de Sela, Lil Peep, and Jim Morrison—if their untimely deaths had been averted, or somehow had not been the end of their lives. Booklist praised Mark Swartz’s fiction for its “lithe satirical humor, impressive intellectual dimension, and sly provocation,” and these qualities are on full display in these at once heartfelt and borderline absurd tales.

Takoma Park’s Mark Swartz is the author of the novels Instant Karma (2002), H2O (2006), and Summertime Jews (2018). His new short story collection, The Music Never Died (Verse Chorus Press; illustrations by Jeb Loy Nichols), ­imagines what might have happened to Jimi Hendrix, Gram Parsons, Amy Winehouse, Lil Peep, and more, if their untimely deaths had been averted, or somehow hadn’t been the end of their lives. Booklist praised Swartz’s fiction for its “lithe satirical humor, impressive ­intellectual dimension, and sly provocation,” and these qualities are on full ­display in these at once heartfelt and borderline absurd tales.

Making his interlocutorial debut, long-time Takoma Park resident Scott Williams is co-host of WOWD’s Rock & Roll Rabbit Hole, which features new and old indie rock, and guest performances by local bands. Mark Swartz will be a guest on the show on Tuesday, October 1, from noon-2pm.