Dawnie Walton s Debut Novel The Final Revival of Opal & Nev Strikes Sociopolitical and Racial Chords wdet.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wdet.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
May 25, 2021
Danielle Evans
THE WASHINGTON POST – Dawnie Waltonâs debut novel is a dazzling triumph. Framed as an oral history,
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev relies on a collage of voices to tell the story of Opal Jewel and Nev Charles, artists who got their start as an interracial duo in the 70s.
Their first album was struggling when a violent tragedy drew the spotlight to them. That moment of fame as a duo was short-lived – Nev, “a goofy white English boy”, turned to more commercially popular music and sailed to solo superstardom; Opal, “an outcast Black girl from Detroit” with more experimental ambitions, has a quieter but singular career as a foremother of Afropunk whose iconic moments tend to resurface as memes.
Fiona Mozleyâs Hot Stew and three other fiction titles
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Author of the Booker-shortlisted
Elmet, Fiona Mozley devotes her second novel to the changing face of a red-light district. Set in and around a Soho brothel,
Hot Stew sees a community of sex workers squaring off against the low running dogs of capitalism. The brothelâs existence is threatened by Agatha Howard â a cartoonish property developer seeking to expel the riffraff in Sohoâs alleyways so gentrification can proceed apace. Arrayed against her are Precious and Tabitha. Both have served at the brothel (run on enlightened principles, with a fierce sense of solidarity among those who ply their trade). They organise a protest that attracts widespread media attention. Mozley gives us a lively, Dickensian portrayal of the Soho demi-monde, including the lowlife ad
Dawnie Walton’s debut novel is a rollicking read about rock stars who don’t exist. And yet its heart and soul are utterly real – and its narrative is like a truth-seeking missile.