Stairway to Hell by Charlie Williams
| Stairway to Hell by Charlie Williams | |
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| Category: General Fiction | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: Certainly a distinctive read, with a bizarre premise handled very well, a great protagonist, and enough quirky humour to get us all through this tale of a possibly possessed singer. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 288 | Date: August 2009 |
| Publisher: Serpent's Tail | |
| ISBN: 978-1846686894 | |
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This is looking like a bad night for Rick Suntan, club singer. He's merely trying to put some Doctor Who into his Cliff Richard renditions (don't ask), when he gets bottled off the stage. Oh, and sacked. Oh, and his girlfriend changes the locks on him. Oh, and he gets shot. From this mess of a life comes an even more unusual thread, courtesy of his small-scale manager. Is the latter, we feel, some Mephisto to Rick's Faust - or just a saddened alcoholic? Neither, in fact - he's a messenger, with the news that Rick is actually David Bowie's soul, inverted into the body of a nonentity. Courtesy of Jimmy Page.
The beginnings of the book where we learn all this and more is a very brisk and enjoyable read. The first person telling doesn't go down the unreliable narrator route, and instead just offers us a most pleasant look at the tribulations of our hero. All the while the narrative piles odd on top of odd, until we have a collection of completely novel characters, centred around Rick Suntan. His trials and tribulations over a few summer days made for a great novel, with the briskness and enjoyability never letting up.
Rick faces a great spread of highs and lows, with darkness and depravity, and heights of what is - to him - some form of attainment. The lyrics he comes up with are so bad the author is misjudging his cruelty to his hero, I feel, but apart from that - and some peculiar artificial place names - I didn't have reason to have Charlie Williams up on anything.
There were times when my own personal taste wanted this to launch into a scathing anti-Bowie comedy (well, let's face it - the man was seriously over-rated). But by the end we see - rightly - that there are bigger fish to fry. This morphs successfully into the most distinctive and enjoyable look at the normal person in an unremarkable body, the best evocation of the hero that is in us all, I can remember reading for a long time.
It might even be the first SuBo-influenced novel of our time. If some wacky promoter decided to advertise this as such it would go down well, but I think there is enough quality herein to make it a big seller anyway.
Oh, and it has a lot to say about the enduring cosmic properties of urine.
Don't get me wrong, this is a measured quirkiness, which does not have to try too hard to go down the road of the odd. Too much bizarreness can be a turn-off, for me, but here I found a lovely balance of controlled insanity, and a strong level of inventiveness. I did guess a few things way before the ending, but had a great ride getting there. Certainly if you remember 70s rock, and the characters mentioned in this book - it's a joyous path to take finding out who everyone is - this is highly recommended.
I must thank Serpent's Tail for sending us a review copy.
If some non-fiction about the period appeals to you then you might enjoy Tony Visconti: the Autobiography: Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy by Tony Visconti.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Stairway to Hell by Charlie Williams at Amazon.com.
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