- Paperback: 462 pages
- Publisher: Serpent's Tail; 1st, imprint,Profile Books(GB) edition (7 Jun 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 185242933X
- ISBN-13: 978-1852429331
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.5 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 801,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
An astonishingly evocative and emotional telling of the tale, a heartbreaking elegy for the blank generation --Jake Arnott
What can I say? Cathi Unsworth has written the Great Punk Novel, so I can scratch that off my list of ambitions! The Singer is a compulsive and engrossing book, the characters and the narratives utterly convincing --David Peace
The best novel I have read about the punk era, and an absorbing mystery... a sad memory of an exciting, destructive and doomed era --Marcel Berlins, The Times
What can I say? Cathi Unsworth has written the Great Punk Novel, so I can scratch that off my list of ambitions! The Singer is a compulsive and engrossing book, the characters and the narratives utterly convincing --David Peace
The best novel I have read about the punk era, and an absorbing mystery... a sad memory of an exciting, destructive and doomed era --Marcel Berlins, The Times
Laura Wilson, Guardian
'An evocative portrait of the music industry... a cracking mystery... Unsworth writes convincingly about the raw power of punk and captures the feeling of optimism and innocence that was lost in the Thatcher years. The Singer is a captivating page-turner and, for this reader, a thoroughly enjoyable pogo down memory lane'
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Stevie Mullin was already halfway through his second jam doughnut, on top of the new school sports centre, when he realised what all the shouting was about. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Stevie Mullin was already halfway through his second jam doughnut, on top of the new school sports centre, when he realised what all the shouting was about. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Who and why should you read this book?
Anyone with a healthy interest in Punk Rock and/or Post Punk - and/or music in general
Anyone with a love for London
Anyone who appreciates Romans Noirs (crime stories that go that extra deeper into exploring the motivations and social reasons behind the crime story, and also explore the real consequences on the vitims, on top of the usual detective crime solving).
Rock HEROES myth-making
BUT the above just does not do justice to this brilliant book. Ms. Unsworth had already put together a more than pleasant, original and interesting read in "The Not Knowing", her first offering, but with "The Singer" she really now has come into a fully fledged writer with attitude.
With a perfectly plotted story, the format is a risky but surprisingly addictive structure. Each chapter alternates between the 70/80s and the 00's and whilst you are always left wanting for more of each chapter's story, you immediately get hooked back into the next decade, eagerly continuing where you had been left last after just a few sentences.
All characters, particularly the female characters, have a genuine depth to them, and the music industry and Punk and Post-Punk period background are as convincing as a music journalist of Ms. Unsworth's credentials will have the reader expect.
If the devil is the details, in this case the brilliance is in the details, with locations such as Stoke newington, Camden, Portobello Road, Montmartre and Pigalle in Paris and Lisbon very rightfully described as the last western European outpost of real interest (I kep saying to everyone and their mums to go to Lisbon - I went there 7 times myself so far), giving a rich, current and sometimes historical coloured detail to the overall story.
This is a genuinely cracking read, with both depth and attitude aplenty. Thank you very much Ms. Unsworth and please come up with more.
Anyone with a healthy interest in Punk Rock and/or Post Punk - and/or music in general
Anyone with a love for London
Anyone who appreciates Romans Noirs (crime stories that go that extra deeper into exploring the motivations and social reasons behind the crime story, and also explore the real consequences on the vitims, on top of the usual detective crime solving).
Rock HEROES myth-making
BUT the above just does not do justice to this brilliant book. Ms. Unsworth had already put together a more than pleasant, original and interesting read in "The Not Knowing", her first offering, but with "The Singer" she really now has come into a fully fledged writer with attitude.
With a perfectly plotted story, the format is a risky but surprisingly addictive structure. Each chapter alternates between the 70/80s and the 00's and whilst you are always left wanting for more of each chapter's story, you immediately get hooked back into the next decade, eagerly continuing where you had been left last after just a few sentences.
All characters, particularly the female characters, have a genuine depth to them, and the music industry and Punk and Post-Punk period background are as convincing as a music journalist of Ms. Unsworth's credentials will have the reader expect.
If the devil is the details, in this case the brilliance is in the details, with locations such as Stoke newington, Camden, Portobello Road, Montmartre and Pigalle in Paris and Lisbon very rightfully described as the last western European outpost of real interest (I kep saying to everyone and their mums to go to Lisbon - I went there 7 times myself so far), giving a rich, current and sometimes historical coloured detail to the overall story.
This is a genuinely cracking read, with both depth and attitude aplenty. Thank you very much Ms. Unsworth and please come up with more.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This well-written book is set in two eras: the punk era (late seventies, early eighties) and the present (2001-2002).
The young journalist Eddie wants to dig up the story about the band Blood Truth and write a book about it. He gets a lot of help from his photographer friend Gavin who knew the band back from the good old days.
What makes the story extra interesting is that the singer (Vince Smith) of Blood Truth is said to have disappeared. A lot of people are blaming his girlfriend Sylvana for the break-up of the band. Eddie goes on a mission to find out the truth behind it all. He does interviews with the remaining band members plus other people related to the band. Doing the interviews in bars and coming home drunk and late results in him losing his long time girlfriend. Something that also disappoints his parents. But Eddie is determined to prove everyone wrong by finishing the book about Blood Truth.
And Eddie offers a lot. He carries on working on the book despite the threats he receives. He even ends up sleeping with an old punk belladonna. Finally he's going on a trip to Lisbon where the rumour says Vince is hanging out. But it might be a reason for Vince not wanting to be found ...
The end is the absolutely best part of the book. It's so unexpected and twisted. Where many good books fall on a weak ending this book is worth hanging on to - you'll get rewarded in the last chapter!
The reason I'm not giving the book five stars is that a lot of the descriptions from the punk era feel a bit cliché and written about before. No one can copy the story about Sid & Nancy. I don't think the writer is trying to do this, but some of the chapters could do with some more developing. But if you love the punk era and can't get enough of it - this book is for you.
The young journalist Eddie wants to dig up the story about the band Blood Truth and write a book about it. He gets a lot of help from his photographer friend Gavin who knew the band back from the good old days.
What makes the story extra interesting is that the singer (Vince Smith) of Blood Truth is said to have disappeared. A lot of people are blaming his girlfriend Sylvana for the break-up of the band. Eddie goes on a mission to find out the truth behind it all. He does interviews with the remaining band members plus other people related to the band. Doing the interviews in bars and coming home drunk and late results in him losing his long time girlfriend. Something that also disappoints his parents. But Eddie is determined to prove everyone wrong by finishing the book about Blood Truth.
And Eddie offers a lot. He carries on working on the book despite the threats he receives. He even ends up sleeping with an old punk belladonna. Finally he's going on a trip to Lisbon where the rumour says Vince is hanging out. But it might be a reason for Vince not wanting to be found ...
The end is the absolutely best part of the book. It's so unexpected and twisted. Where many good books fall on a weak ending this book is worth hanging on to - you'll get rewarded in the last chapter!
The reason I'm not giving the book five stars is that a lot of the descriptions from the punk era feel a bit cliché and written about before. No one can copy the story about Sid & Nancy. I don't think the writer is trying to do this, but some of the chapters could do with some more developing. But if you love the punk era and can't get enough of it - this book is for you.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A gripping page-turner that leads you into the brutal world of punk rock. The structure of the book - although already seen in Jonathan Coe's novels - allows for a regular suspense as two different point of views at two different time periods combine, creating deep characters and forcing the reader to read on until sated or exhausted - in a strangely similar fashion as some of the addictive intoxications evoked in the book. This is not only a great mystery novel, or a novel-about-the-punk-rock-years (a lazy marketing strategy), this is mainly a brilliantly written book, with a flourish of well-portrayed and powerful characters, complex structure and some very sombre passages,especially those involving elusive prince of darkness Vince, a mix of Rimbaud and Jim Morrison. But it is true that one of main achievements of Cathi Unsworth, a rock critic herself, is to leave you with a sense of waste and no illusions about the world of rock and roll, exposing the cynical motives of many of the scroungers and wolves who got involved in the punk-rock movement, those with artistic talent ending up as victims. A disenchanted novel too.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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