Stories We Could Tell

by Tony Parsons

book data

38 ratings, 3.18 average rating, 7 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		10%
4		41%
3		20%
2		17%
1		10%

edit

published

May 2nd 2006 by HarperCollins

binding

Paperback, 304 pages

isbn

0007151268 (isbn13: 9780007151264)

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | Abebooks | compare prices…

new topic
discuss this book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

friend reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists. Add this book to your favorite list »

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 68)

all | this edition

Ian rated it:

11/23/08

Written to the standard Tony Parsons formula - disappointing.

I’m not sure why I keep reading Tony Parsons’ books. The two I’ve read in the past, Man and Boy and One For My Baby, haven’t impressed me at all. Part of the problem is that he only seems to do one set of characters: a younger generation struggling with relationships, middle-aged parents who’ve had it tough but who make-do-and-mend and don’t complain, and an elderly relative who dies during the course of the book. Throw...more Written to the standard Tony Parsons formula - disappointing.

I’m not sure why I keep reading Tony Parsons’ books. The two I’ve read in the past, Man and Boy and One For My Baby, haven’t impressed me at all. Part of the problem is that he only seems to do one set of characters: a younger generation struggling with relationships, middle-aged parents who’ve had it tough but who make-do-and-mend and don’t complain, and an elderly relative who dies during the course of the book. Throw in lots of musical references and a sporty car, give it a good stir, garnish with a happy ending, and you’ve got a Tony Parsons novel.

Pick up Stories We Could Tell and the opening chapters aren’t promising. Here are some youngsters grappling with relationships, some parents who’ve had it tough but who still get by, there’s music, and oh look, a nice car.

Yet this one has the potential to be different. For a start most of the action takes place in a 24 hour period (16 August 1977, the day Elvis Presley died). And it follows three characters, all of them journalists on a London-based music paper. It’s the height of the punk rock era and Britain seems poised on the brink of some sort of political precipice.

Each of the characters is grappling with a personal demon, for Ray it's not being able to live up to his dead brother, for Leon the success of his broadsheet columnist father, and for Terry it's his own feeling that his past life may have been better than his current one.

Parsons was, of course, a journalist on the NME in the 1970s, so this isn’t just write what you know, this is semi-autobiography. From that point of view you can’t help feeling that by fictionalising the story Parsons is pulling his punches and that he’d have been better writing this as non-fiction.

The main characters are well enough drawn that you manage to care about them for the duration of the book. Yet the bit-part players are little more than shadows. Overall what you get is a somewhat rose-tinted view of a difficult era. Some of the plotlines are rather too conveniently resolved and there are two and a half happy endings (yes, folks, another must-have ingredient of formula Parsons), though nobody (apart from Elvis) dies. Oh, and there’s one glaring historical inaccuracy that would have taken about 30 seconds research to nail.

It’s the formula that’s the problem here, because it has the effect of sanitising what might have been a great rock and roll novel. This is probably the best Tony Parsons yet – you just can’t escape the thought that it could have been so much better in the hands of another author....less

Like this review? yes

title link
avg rating
small image
med image
large image

Stories We Could Tell

book data

new topic discuss this book

friend reviews

lists with this book

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 68)

blog this book

combine other editions (7)

view this book

view this book

popular shelves

new topic
discuss this book

combine
other editions (7)