Greatest Hits
Laura Barnett
Book Review
The
beautiful retro cover of this novel pulled me in. The heart of the book hit me like a ton of
bricks and I couldn’t wait to get it home.
An English singer-songwriter called Cass Wheeler selects tracks for her
Greatest Hits album and she picks the songs that have meant the most to her in
her life. At the start of each chapter
the lyrics of each song are placed and the story of her life unfolds.
Laura
Barnett is a former freelance arts journalist with a love of rock music and
this is the reason the book is so convincing. She has worked for most of the broadsheet newspapers. She spent half a year reading biographies of successful female artists like Joni
Mitchell, Sandy Denny and Chrissie Hynde.
She also spoke to publicity people and tour managers to provide a vital
framework upon which she develops all her characters, their traits and real life
problems of both human nature and creative partnerships. Good examples of
course aren’t hard to find – Simon and Garfunkel, and Fleetwood Mac spring to
mind, but you’ll know others I don’t. (Please feel free to add via comments or
an email)
The
story isn’t a fantasy. It’s like reading
a star biography and kept me hooked through the story of a career woman in
music. It’s a terrific second novel from
Laura Barnett whose debut was The Versions of Us.
The
book is also augmented by an available recording of the songs by
singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams which is called “Songs from the novel
Greatest Hits” . I
have two of her albums Little Black Numbers and Old Low Light so I know the
album will be a worthy purchase when I get around to it. Kathryn has also more recent good form as she
has also released Hypoxia which came
from a writing commission and was inspired by Sylvia Plath’s book The Bell Jar.
Greatest
Hits has inspired me to make my own playlist on YouTube, not only of my singles
collection but also albums that have had an impact in my life. Have you the stamina to do the same? I’ve been called geek and nerd (these are the
nicer ones) so don’t let anyone else know until you’re finished and ready to
share to cyberspace!
NE
