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Amazon.co.uk Review
The novel opens at the height of the Silver Jubilee festivities. The Tambinis, whose individual stories also drive and augment the narrative, are Italian immigrants. Haunted by a few unresolved ghosts from the war, they struggle to make a living in Rothesay, a resort whose tourist trade has been decimated by "jet engines, Thomson holidays and Lloret de Mar". Rosa, Maria's neurotic mother, runs the chip shop; Uncle Alfredo is a hairdresser and Grandmother Lucia simply nurses memories of her long dead first child, Sofia, "a lovely singer". The weight of their dysfunctional aspirations, not unsurprisingly, fall on 13-year-old Maria. Spotted by a TV talent scout, she wins Opportunity Knocks. Leaving the family far behind, she moves to London and, briefly, takes the international world of light entertainment by storm. The speed with which she is estranged from her old life is neatly, if not completely believably, illustrated in her correspondence with a one-time best friend: while Kalpana chats about Gormenghast and the boys she fancies, Maria's increasingly brief and self-absorbed missives start to read like extracts from beauty manuals.
O'Hagan may indulge in what is best described as "product placement" period detail (references to Girl's World, Cola Cubes and McEwan's Export etc) but this is certainly not an exercise in 1970s and 80s nostalgia. In harking back to a slightly more innocent era, a period when both eating disorders and the downsides of fame were certainly less well publicised, if not well known, this impressive novel makes resonant points about our unwavering obsession with celebrity. "Nowadays", O'Hagan's Hughie Green grumbles, "the kids don't want to be good and they don't care about being the best: they want fame". Plus ça change. --Travis Elborough --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Business was slack, so the pubs closed early and the ferry came in for the night. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
The story of the main character Maria being spotted at a local talent show and being whisked off in to the world of showbiz was very realistic and an emotional ride. For a man to write so emphaticaly about a young girl struggling with anorexia was amazing and not at all maudlin.
There is no doubt that this story was based on the life of Lena Zavaroni in all but name and outcome which made it all the more compulsive.
A brilliant book.
There's a lot of Lena in this book: we meet a young girl called Maria Tambini, who could, superficially, be her double. What O'Hagan does, though, is surround her with an invented and brilliantly realised family, set of circumstances, and past, with such amazing attention to detail and emotional acuity that very quickly into the book, you find yourself thinking that this isn't 'about' Lena Zavaroni at all -- it's about three generations of women and their secrets and lies, it's about love and redemption, and it's about O'Hagan's stunning talent for ventriloquy: the book is told is different voices, all of which are separate but add up to a cohesive and devastating whole.
I read his previous, Booker-shortlisted novel Our Fathers when it came out a few years ago and although I was impressed by the writing, the book was too dense and demoralising for me. This is different. The writing is still dazzling, there isn't one duff sentence, but it's also a proper page-turner and much more accessible. I think it's remarkable that a man could write about women like this. This book should come with one of those money-back guarantee stickers.
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