mono_vox (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mono_vox) wrote,@ 2008-03-12 22:31:00 |
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50 books in 1 year - 2008 - # 5
Stars Are Stars
by Kevin Sampson
I love books that capture the sorts of emotions and events that whizz past you when you're young, because you're too busy experiencing them spend time writing them down. When you fall in love for the first time, you think no one's ever felt like this before, that you’re making your own rules and nothing, not even time can stop you.
Stars are Stars follows Danny May, a 15 year old from Toxteth who dreams of going to LiverpoolArtSchool. He meets Nicole, a politically active middle class girl and the two of them embark on what they believe to be a bohemian love affair.
Falling in love when you’re young, you think that no one's ever felt like this before, and that youthful arrogance is captured perfectly in Danny and Nicole's conversations and affectations, which are carried out in dive bars and clubs in Liverpool and in the streets of Paris.
Their love story may be the main storyline, but politics and music feature heavily too. Bowie, Psychedelic Furs, The Bunnymen, Devo all feature and unusually for a book that mentions real bands and events (Ian Curtis' suicide) they crop up very naturally, that doesn’t feel like Sampson is trying too hard to be cool.
Then comes the politics...from hope to despair in five years, here comes Mrs Thatcher smashing and grabbing, all whilst keeping her hair in that unworldly helmet. In 1980, Danny receives the devastating news that the Art School's funding has been withdrawn by the new Tory government, and stops painting, starts taking drugs and robbing from the people he loves.
Danny's descent allays with the massively violent Toxteth riots, which are described in vivid detail, just like his paintings which bookend this story.
Stars Are Stars
by Kevin Sampson
I love books that capture the sorts of emotions and events that whizz past you when you're young, because you're too busy experiencing them spend time writing them down. When you fall in love for the first time, you think no one's ever felt like this before, that you’re making your own rules and nothing, not even time can stop you.
Stars are Stars follows Danny May, a 15 year old from Toxteth who dreams of going to LiverpoolArtSchool. He meets Nicole, a politically active middle class girl and the two of them embark on what they believe to be a bohemian love affair.
Falling in love when you’re young, you think that no one's ever felt like this before, and that youthful arrogance is captured perfectly in Danny and Nicole's conversations and affectations, which are carried out in dive bars and clubs in Liverpool and in the streets of Paris.
Their love story may be the main storyline, but politics and music feature heavily too. Bowie, Psychedelic Furs, The Bunnymen, Devo all feature and unusually for a book that mentions real bands and events (Ian Curtis' suicide) they crop up very naturally, that doesn’t feel like Sampson is trying too hard to be cool.
Then comes the politics...from hope to despair in five years, here comes Mrs Thatcher smashing and grabbing, all whilst keeping her hair in that unworldly helmet. In 1980, Danny receives the devastating news that the Art School's funding has been withdrawn by the new Tory government, and stops painting, starts taking drugs and robbing from the people he loves.
Danny's descent allays with the massively violent Toxteth riots, which are described in vivid detail, just like his paintings which bookend this story.
This story swept me up; due to the colour and texture that Sampson gives his characters and the situations they are born into and fail to get out of.
My only criticism would be that whilst Nicole is out of the story, and Danny gets involved in photographing the riots, it still feels real, but the way they meet up again in Wales, did feel a little contrived, but it’s something that can be overlooked as this is a stunning book, which is well written, exciting, thought provoking and crystallises a very strange and turbulent time in British history, that is made human with the story of Danny May.
My only criticism would be that whilst Nicole is out of the story, and Danny gets involved in photographing the riots, it still feels real, but the way they meet up again in Wales, did feel a little contrived, but it’s something that can be overlooked as this is a stunning book, which is well written, exciting, thought provoking and crystallises a very strange and turbulent time in British history, that is made human with the story of Danny May.
