Every now and then, someone puts music and lit together in a way that just … bangs! It was so hard to not believe that this wasn’t a true story, that back in the day an amazing Black woman rocker hadn’t had her career sidelined by a wyte man and the industry and culture that fawns over those like him while pretending people like her just don’t matter as much since they simply aren’t as marketable and/or using them as – well, just using them in any way they see fit if they see it’ll give them a boost …

But it is a fiction, though the characters certainly took the forms of real-life famous & infamous people who’ve graced the pages of The Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, etc. in my head as I devoured this book. I listened to the author give a couple of interviews and her concept was so spot-on that I couldn’t wait to lose myself in her work. She spoke of Nona Hendryx & Betty Davis & Grace Jones and punk and these are all a few of my favourite things so the anticipation to see what kind of person she would create with this premise was beyond high.

Ms Walton tells the story through the work of another writer, Sunny, a journalist who has landed a rare spot on a music magazine’s masthead AND whose father was the drummer for Opal & Nev (he was killed at a riot when the band’s label put them on a bill with some southern rockers of the sort who wave the Stars&Bars as a call out to their fans of choice). This allows the book to use the framework of being an oral history about the duo (but mostly about Opal) with statements from multiple interviews making up a lot of the text. Sunny’s personal tie to Opal is based in tragedy and slowly the real story of what actually happened before an iconic photograph was taken gets uncovered, I don’t know who all will be surprised but it certainly rings true. Sunny is able to write in depth about this woman because a revival concert has been planned so Opal & Nev are once again in the news but we are constantly reminded that normally Opal would not be given so much space to fill.

None of the characters are all that likable, but artists and creative types are not always known for their winning personalities. This made it more realistic, as did the use of so many different voices talking about Opal’s life and their relationship with her and/or her work: family, friends, business people, and even some non-fictional artists. The most positive words tend to come from those with the least face-to-face time with the subject, but even those who don’t have too much good to say generally know that Opal is not someone to dismiss easily. And this book is not one to be put down easily either.