I am interested in the plot and also look forward to seeing how the character evolves. He is very pessimistic to begin, so it will be interesting to see the changes once he has found fame (at least for a short while). The plot is intriguing and I love a good mystery, so although I found there to be places for improvement, I am still excited to see how it turns out! There are many sentences that run on, and while they include meaningful information, should definitely be split up. For example, “Ever, ever, ever, all the way back to Suburban Long Island, which was the last place on earth a serious artist of any kind ought to come from where he, nonetheless, had been cursed to grow up, the only child of a tax attorney and a high school counselor”. There are definitely places to split up that sentence, and others like them in various other places in the excerpt. There are also many places where parentheses are unnecessary and, in my opinion, overused. As I mentioned, although I found room for improvement, I look forward to the story!