Rock music in a particular time and place - Ten Thousand Saints

The extent to which you'll probably like Eleanor Henderson's novel "Ten Thousand Saints" has to do with how much you can set aside the distractions of a rather baggy and aimless plot and enjoy her ability to evoke a time, place, and era - which is considerable. As the novel meanders toward its conclusion we embark on another band road trip, this time into the deep South, for no apparent reason, then a sudden return to NYC and, after much grungy low-life, surprisingly (or maybe not?) Eliza ensconces herself in Mom's beautiful upper West (?) Side apartment - she misses her mom, she's a good kid, after all. Actually, they're all good kids - which makes me like the novel, in a way, I was worried at the start that every one of the kids (and adults) would be lifeless losers, but the general benevolence of the characters, toward the end, kind of drains the novel of plot tension: there still remain, on the periphery, the vague threat that Tory, the town rich pothead bully, poses - but can we take that threat seriously when the protag is among a bunch of street-tough and street-smart NY rock musicians? Surely, they will take care of him. The other plot element is Johnny's secret life as a gay man, in love with a guy dying of AIDS. Seriously, can the other characters, especially his wife, Eliza, not be aware of this? All these quibbles aside, this novel feels like a very knowledgeable look at rock music in a particular time and place - much more so in my view than the more celebrated Visit from the Goon Squad, which felt to me researched, a view from the outside through the lens of research not experience.