Goodnight Steve McQueen

by Louise Wener

From the author of The Perfect Play comes a charmingly
romantic–yet very edgy-novel set in the music industry about friendship,
love, growing up, and always following your dreams.

Danny McQueen has dreamed of being a pop star since he was thirteen-years-old. Now he's twenty-nine and still dreaming. But he faces a dilemma. His girlfriend Alison wants him to sort his life out. She's given him an ultimatum: Find a record deal by the end of the year or it's find a new girlfriend. When is it time to give up on your childhood ambitions? When is it time to stop watching Columbo in your underpants and get a proper job? Is six months long enough for one last assault on the big time? Is friendship ever more important than love? Is it just your imagination or can your girlfriend always tell when you've been looking at Internet porn? With the help of his boss Kostas, his two best friends, and an eighty-year-old Kung Fu enthusiast called Sheila, Danny McQueen is about to find out.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Chick Lit, Music, British Literature

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Louise is an English writer, singer, songwriter and guitarist of the band Sleeper.

Reviews

[Sue Gerhardt Griffiths · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

I was switching back and forth between two books until this one had me cackling myself silly so naturally I stuck to this one until the final page.

Very keen on reading another book by this author.

*Book #37/72 of my coffee table to-read pile challenge

[Cheryl]

Sure I love fiction and nonfiction about rock stars and musicians, but there is a back story on this one:

Semi-serendipitously discovered this title while testing the catalog and learned from reviews that the author is the Louise from 90s band Sleeper. So, wow, intriguing, because I was introduced to Louise from Sleeper on July 30, 1995 when I heard Michael Stipe sing "Happy Birthday" to her (sweet sixteen) before the band launches into "Strange Currencies." R.E.M. played the Milton Keynes Bowl and broadcast the performance around the world. Anyone else catch it? I have the bootleg recording. Anyone have any Sleeper?

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louise Wener, former singer of the 90's brit-pop band Sleeper, shines in her second novel, about a guy in his late-20's who has to choose between his fading dreams of rock stardom and living a normal life to keep the woman he loves. Funny, authentic, and heart-warming (or at least as warm as my heart gets). Her prose is a lot like her lyrics, if you like this, check out the band's great album, "The It Girl."

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite being authored by a woman, I can see this easily falling into the lad lit category, although that doesn't really matter. Has some good laugh-out loud moments, but lacks the depth of, say, Nick Hornby.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accurate portrayal of aging hipster musicians, perfect for anglophiles such as myself. Makes you kind of glad record labels are dying off because the little guy can now make and sell music from his basement.... or so I've heard.

[Munsi Parker-Munroe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this years ago, I went on a huge "dude in his late 20s/early 30s tries to figure his shit out" genre kick in, unsurprisingly, my late 20s and early 30s. It was very good then. It's very good now.

Crafting pop songs for UK based indie band Sleeper through the '90s left Louise Wener with an intuitive grasp of conservation of detail, and she evokes time and place and character with a sparsity of language, while maintaining a brisk, easily readable pace and engaging sense of humour here. The people in this book feel lived in, rich and interesting, you want to spend time with them, and the author's own biography gives her a unique perspective on the trials of an aspiring musician.

I read books by musicians while listening to their catalogue. You know this about me. Sleeper's catalogue is excellent, this book is excellent, use the two in combination. You deserve such fine things.

[Laia Alonso · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fun! I found it on the street in one of those swap libraries. Stole my attention because it had a review that compared it to High Fidelity - one of my all time favorite movies/shows, so of course, I had to grab it. There was a receipt inside from Iceland in 2004, so I thought that was a sweet memory to hold while reading as well.

The book itself was fine. 3 stars. I liked the music component, and the general UK banter/bloke style writing. But it didn’t fascinate me or hook me much, I just enjoyed the romanticization of this random book on the street and picturing whoever left it in that bookshelf after buying it way back when in Iceland.

[Tom Boniface-Webb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Throughly enjoyable read. Incredibly simplistic characterisation and very twee plot, but difficult to put it down.

From a lyricist as good with the simple beauty of the everyday lives of ordinary folk, as Wener, had hoped for a slightly more complex story, but nothing much bad to say about this book.

[Sheri Radford · Rating 2 out of 5]

An annoying and unfunny snoozefest of a book. Skip this turkey.

[Alec Downie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet chick-flick novel for boys, written by a girl.

3 1/2 is more fair

[Ian Kirkpatrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading a number of first novels recently and decided to read Louise Wener’s debut, “Goodnight, Steve McQueen” even though it dates back to 2002. I am so glad that I did; I think I enjoyed it more than any other novel I’ve read over the past year.

The quality of the writing is outstanding, and Wener skilfully creates a really entertaining set of characters with distinctive voices. She writes in the first person through the eyes of Danny McQueen, a 29 year old who has spent his life dreaming of rock stardom. He is given an ultimatum by his long-suffering girlfriend; make something of his life by the end of the year or find a new girlfriend.

The novel has been compared to Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity” and to my mind that’s a reasonable parallel. Wener has a similar ear for both for dialogue and for comedy, and I read the book in virtually a single sitting with a huge grin on my face.

I particularly liked Wener’s minor characters, such as Danny’s bandmate Vince and his obsessions with Kevin Rowland and finding the perfect transitional shoe. Matty the drummer is another beautifully observed portrait, painfully accurate and stopping just short of caricature.

In reading various reviews of the book I was astonished by the amount of bile and bitterness aimed at Wener, which on the strength of this debut seems completely unfair. Even the endorsement section at the front of the paperback edition starts with a quote from The Scotsman “She can actually write”, which is pretty demeaning. If anyone wants proof of the power of her writing they should read “What’s wrong with being a mother?” a piece that she wrote for The Guardian in 2006 which moved me to tears.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason, I am sure this book is on one of my lists somewhere. I don’t know where, but it’s there. The stamp the library gave it was from the last year and the cover is hardly worn. But when I read the masthead, as I always do, it said that this book was from 2002! Damn, that’s old. This book was an easy, straight forward read. Short, easy to swallow chapters, which I love. Dude and Girl have been dating for a long time and Girl gives Dude an ultimatum. His band has to make it by the end of the year and then they will revaluate their relationship. Not break up, but you never know. Girl then goes off to Burges for a job (they live in London). Dude gets in contact with an old friend who sucks, but is in a major band who is touring the UK and they get on that tour. And of course, everything great happens. Dude and Girl almost break up in the end because Girl is kind of jealous that Dude is proceeding with his dream while she is stuck in a job she doesn’t like very much and Dude thinks they broke up, so he sleeps with a fan. Dude tells Girl what happened and Girl gets pissed, but decides to try to make it work. You can tell that Dude loves Girl very much. Everyone for the most part is really likeable in this book and normally people like this kind of annoy me, but in this book, they didn’t. Everything of course works out in the end.

Grade: C

[Nick Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfectly pleasant popular 'bloke-lit' style fiction, relationships and humour set around the theme of being in a band - it shouldn't be a surprise that Louise 'former frontwoman of Britpop band Sleeper' Wener is very capable of writing an enjoyable book. I was impressed though, the male characters and female characters both felt realistic (which can sometimes not be the case with this ilk of book) and the plot - that of a bloke given an ultimatum by his girlfriend to get a record deal or grown up and get a proper job in the next six months, or the relationship is over - was enough to hold my attention. Sure, it was a little clichéd in places, and at times I wondered whether 'write about what you know' could also be interpreted as 'recycle anecdotes from your time in a band', but it was entertaining and fun.

[Jimmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Are guys really that dumb?? It seems like there is a stereotype of guys that cannot handle any type of relationships with women running through most of the books and movies I've partaken in recently. They guys can communicate ok with their male friends but when it comes to women they have no sense whatsoever....(as in the Coupling TV show)

I picked this book out at random in the library as it was set in the UK and dealt with music. Very lightweight and took me a while to read as I was not dying to get back to it. I remember laughing out loud once. I will file under harmless!

[Becky Everhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really good. I loved how well the characters were developed as well as how they interacted. It seemed realistic to me in that way, especially since the characters weren't completely perfect. I will say that at times it was hard to tell/keep track of who was talking at times and the British slang sometimes took some doing to decipher for someone from smalltown Indiana. Still, it was joy to read and probably was well-researched by the author's own musical journey as the member of a popular band.

[Weebly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, and I must say it was a very easy read and not bad for a first attempt at writing for Louise Wener. Danny was a likeable character, and now I have seen what it is like trying to get a foot in the door in the music business, I think I would prefer not to be a singer myself! I would assume it is faily accurate with the background of the author who was the lead singer of the band Sleeper. It kinf of reminded me of the Mike Gayle book I recently read too.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

For someone intimately acquainted with the music scene, a lot of the dialogue among the band members in this book fails to ring true. A real pop star, for instance, would not be inclined to describe a particularly good guitar riff as "rockin'"; nor would they be likely to hold Dexy's Midnight Runners in such high esteem as one character appears to. Having said that, it's also a light and enjoyable read - although the 'happy' ending did seem to me a tad depressing...

[Lucy Cassatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book while traveling through Ireland. I know that I read it that summer, which now seems ages ago. I can´t remember what the story was about (and you can look that up), but I know that the book left me with the feeling that it was hilarious and ingeniously written. I also know that I lend it to my best friend Christoph, who also enjoyed it - and we both are very hard to impress.
So there it is, a recommendation for a book based on a great feeling!

[Joana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was Louise Wener's first book and understandably deals with her area of expertise: the music industry and trying to make it as a small band. It's a fun, entertaining book with lots of fast dialogue and, while the story is a little predictable with twists and turns and good fortune in the mix, I enjoyed it very much. This is the kind of book that I would (attempt to) write and the kind that I wouldn't mind reading more of.

[Bonnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was disappointed by the 2-dimensional feeling of this book. The characters and plot were unfortunately predictable. I skimmed the middle 60% of the book and then read the end, and didn't feel like I missed anything.

There are some moments that border on depth, but on the whole, the themes of the story were pretty stale so I had difficulty enjoying any of the humour.

[Michelle Meckley · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started out OK funny characters and neat to see a man's point of view but it stops there.. I skipped thru some pages and feel did not miss a thing. I went to the end of book and extremely predictable also many references to european ways so that was confusing as well.. Don't waste your time on this one

[Gal Shadeck · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice attempt at bloke lit from a chick, with an additional bonus of chick having a first-hand experience with the music business. Probably better than an average book in this genre (beats Tony Parsons, Mike Gayle and the guy who wrote "Starter for ten", in my view), but still miles away from Nick Hornby, or even John O'Farrell.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much more conventional and plodding than her other novel I've read, which at least was startlingly original; nothing new to see here. Still comfortably enjoyable, but not a keeper.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Have this book listed in my reading log, but have no recollection of it. I'm sure I picked it up due to it being British, but other than that, not too memorable even when reading reviews to spark my memory.

[Ben Sherwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

very easy to read and really quite enjoyable, if a little predicatable at times - i kinda expected more, but i'd already read the rather excellent half life of stars, and on the whole this is a very good first novel.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was quite reminiscent of High Fidelity: a 20s-something music fan avoids getting a "real" job by working in a video store, resulting in a lack of progress in both his life in general and his relationship with his girlfriend in particular. Very funny.

[Annyka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Danny's friends are amazing. Just hated how girls were treated in this book. Sorry but feminism all the way! But the plot was amazing and it helps with never giving up when it comes to doing what you love. But damn those boys look at women like play things, hence the three stars.

[holly !! · Rating 5 out of 5]

if i had a nickel for every book i’ve read about a guy with bad acne, whose dad died of a heart attack, eats spaghetti hoops, is useless and is also down bad for a blondie, i would have two nickels. which isnt a lot. but its weird it happened twice.

[Kendra · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't remember how far into this one I got. I just didn't like it.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

really good light-hearted read.