Guy Mankowski's Blog - Posts Tagged "nineties"
"Dead Rock Stars" now available for pre-order
I'm thrilled to announce that my first novel in five years is being published internationally by Darkstroke / Crooked Cat Books in September.
‘The first page of my sister’s diary was a picture of Frances Farmer, facing a drawing of Ophelia. My sister’s psychic accomplices were all tragic figures…’
Emma Imrie was a Plath-obsessed, self-taught teenage musician dreaming of fame, from a remote village on the Isle of Wight. She found it too, briefly becoming a star of the nineties Camden music scene. But then she died in mysterious circumstances.
In the aftermath of Emma’s death, her younger brother, Jeff, is forced by their parents to stay at the opulent home of childhood friends on the island.
During a wild summer of beach parties and music, Jeff faces up to the challenges that come with young love, youthful ambition and unresolved grief. His sister's prodigious advice from beyond the grave becomes the only weapon he has against an indifferent world.
As well as the only place where the answers he craves might exist…
Pre-order here- mybook.to/deadrockstars
‘The first page of my sister’s diary was a picture of Frances Farmer, facing a drawing of Ophelia. My sister’s psychic accomplices were all tragic figures…’
Emma Imrie was a Plath-obsessed, self-taught teenage musician dreaming of fame, from a remote village on the Isle of Wight. She found it too, briefly becoming a star of the nineties Camden music scene. But then she died in mysterious circumstances.
In the aftermath of Emma’s death, her younger brother, Jeff, is forced by their parents to stay at the opulent home of childhood friends on the island.
During a wild summer of beach parties and music, Jeff faces up to the challenges that come with young love, youthful ambition and unresolved grief. His sister's prodigious advice from beyond the grave becomes the only weapon he has against an indifferent world.
As well as the only place where the answers he craves might exist…
Pre-order here- mybook.to/deadrockstars
How Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix influenced my new novel "Dead Rock Stars"
The actor River Phoenix was a huge influence on “Dead Rock Stars” but it is hard to easily explain why. People might know him best as the young Indiana Jones- with the floppy fringe- from ‘The Last Crusade’ and he was also very moving as a young troubled teen in the hit film ‘Stand By Me’. He had a very bohemian band whose songs were a unique rock / folk hybrid with very earnest lyrics about love and climate change, called ‘Aleka’s Attic’. I don’t just have a particularly wild character named after him in the novel, but my protagonist Jeff’s band is also called ‘Aleka’. (In River’s mythology Aleka was a philosopher who from his attic treehouse drew in a following by debating spiritual ideas). When River tragically died Michael Stipe of REM bought the back catalogue of Aleka’s Attic and Rain River, his sister, is slowly releasing it. The idea of an artist having a great lost record which is only just coming to light was a huge influence behind the other main character, Emma, and the scattered recordings she leaves behind, which in their own little way change the world too. I really enjoyed writing Emma’s angsty lyrics for her songs.
Kurt Cobain is probably the other biggest influence on the novel, because to me he took the artistic sensibility as far as it could go. From lyrics to interviews he used every means at his disposal to convey his 'message' (like Phoenix). He promoted a message of feminism through his interviews and lyrics, with songs like ‘Polly’, and he used his body and clothing to scream the messages that he wanted Nirvana to get across. At various points in my novel musicians play Nirvana songs. I was very much reminded of when I first learnt to play guitar that (like a lot of people) it was Nirvana’s songs I learnt first. It was so exciting to me that such catchy, emotional, raw songs could be picked up so easily and become a mouthpiece for your own emotions. It also became, in a punk way, possibly to express yourself knowing it requited so few chords.
In many ways my new novel book is a tribute to a lost era of mix tapes and cassettes on magazine covers. The book is heavily influenced by novels like Helen Cross' 'My Summer Of Love', Francoise Sagan's 'Bonjour Tristesse' and Emma Forrest's 'Namedropper'; as well as all those music weeklies from the nineties, like Melody Maker. As flippant as those music weeklies now seem and as dismissed as they are they denote a time when culture had more focus and weight, when there was still a distinct counter-culture, before the naivety of the nineties was exposed. I can't think of a story I've written where every word has felt as important to me.
I hope you like it x
"Dead Rock Stars" is published on the 14th September and it can be pre-ordered / bought here- https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Rock-Star...
Kurt Cobain is probably the other biggest influence on the novel, because to me he took the artistic sensibility as far as it could go. From lyrics to interviews he used every means at his disposal to convey his 'message' (like Phoenix). He promoted a message of feminism through his interviews and lyrics, with songs like ‘Polly’, and he used his body and clothing to scream the messages that he wanted Nirvana to get across. At various points in my novel musicians play Nirvana songs. I was very much reminded of when I first learnt to play guitar that (like a lot of people) it was Nirvana’s songs I learnt first. It was so exciting to me that such catchy, emotional, raw songs could be picked up so easily and become a mouthpiece for your own emotions. It also became, in a punk way, possibly to express yourself knowing it requited so few chords.
In many ways my new novel book is a tribute to a lost era of mix tapes and cassettes on magazine covers. The book is heavily influenced by novels like Helen Cross' 'My Summer Of Love', Francoise Sagan's 'Bonjour Tristesse' and Emma Forrest's 'Namedropper'; as well as all those music weeklies from the nineties, like Melody Maker. As flippant as those music weeklies now seem and as dismissed as they are they denote a time when culture had more focus and weight, when there was still a distinct counter-culture, before the naivety of the nineties was exposed. I can't think of a story I've written where every word has felt as important to me.
I hope you like it x
"Dead Rock Stars" is published on the 14th September and it can be pre-ordered / bought here- https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Rock-Star...
My TEDx talk on opening Kristen Pfaff's archive for a new book is now out...
I was first inspired to write a book about Kristen Pfaff from Hole when I read her mother, Janet's excellent book about her daughter's life and it contained excerpts from Kristen's diary. An entry in which she describes as a young girl having a conversation with the sea remains the most beautiful piece of writing I've read. So to now be writing her biography with her brother is an honour for me.
The first fruits of the work of the last few years on this front are my TEDx talk on my experience of listening to Kristen Pfaff's previously unheard diary tapes and opening her archive & how this made me re-open the archive from my own youth (and relive my own days of being in bands). Lot’s more new and unheard Kristen Pfaff information to come when the book is out but for now hope this whets your appetite for this book.
To me, like Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix, Kristen Pfaff was an artist with a very pure outlook on the world and her life deserves far more attention than her death-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=des...
The first fruits of the work of the last few years on this front are my TEDx talk on my experience of listening to Kristen Pfaff's previously unheard diary tapes and opening her archive & how this made me re-open the archive from my own youth (and relive my own days of being in bands). Lot’s more new and unheard Kristen Pfaff information to come when the book is out but for now hope this whets your appetite for this book.
To me, like Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix, Kristen Pfaff was an artist with a very pure outlook on the world and her life deserves far more attention than her death-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=des...
