Lily Brett's Lola Bensky
In the opening scene of this marvelous novel, Lola Bensky, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors who now live in Australia, has come to London to be a rock journalist and is having a remarkably absorbing conversation with Jimi Hendrix. From there, we see her interact with Mick Jagger, Cher, and various other notables of the day, full of self-deprecating wit and good humor (not to mention plans for really weird diets). Then we go forward and see her in her 30s and 50s (and I would totally read the detective series she's writing in her 50s) before going back to the 60s for Monterey Pop. Basically, it's several of my major interests (Judaism, music, vulnerable but cool woman protagonists) combined into one book of awesome! And I'm pretty sure it's semi-autobiographical, based on Googling the author, which is kind of a surprise--the writing feels really young and fresh. I could have done without the list of dead rock stars that Lola had encountered (it's not really new information that like half the rock stars in the 60s died of drug overdoses), but it all came together in the end. I really, really liked this. A/A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in September.
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