Today I’m delighted to be joining the blog tour for DeadStar. My review is written with thanks to Zoe O’Farrell for inviting me on the tour and to the author for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

What’s it like to reach for the stars, but end up floating in a tin can?

Garth Tyson wanted to be the next David Bowie. He fell short. Waaaay short. Burnt out, he fled the stage at Glastonbury ’85, having been pelted with mud, and was never seen again.

You’re familiar with the stars of this era: the Adam Ants, Duran Durans and Depeche Modes – musicians who successfully navigated punk and New Wave to become icons.

Bet you’ve never heard of Garth Tyson – singer, brother, dreamer. Stallholder.

That’s why we’re here.

Decades after Garth’s disappearance, former bandmates, friends, relatives, lovers, music-biz execs and two fans (you try finding more) reunite to tell Garth’s compelling, tragicomic tale. Can any shed light on what really happened to him?

Not everyone appears willingly. Here’s Garth’s 80-year-old mother, Doreen Thyssen: ‘I don’t like people who dig dirt. Fuck off.’ The charmer.

Loved Daisy Jones? Try this perfectly squalid British version.

Review:

Having loved Daisy Jones And The Six, I was intrigued to read a novel that is described as its British counterpart. They are similar in style in that they are both written in the form of interviews but I do think that to compare them any further is to do them both an injustice. DeadStar is entertaining in its own right and I love the way that Griffiths has created very distinctive voices for each character, even the minor ones. Early on, we are asked to imagine the Cockney accents of the interviewees and these shine through the page. 

Griffiths is obviously very passionate about music, but even so, DeadStar must have required an impressive amount of research, which is evident throughout the novel. The late 1970s and early 1980s during which the novel is set are slightly before my time but nevertheless I felt that the styles and culture of this period came through really strongly and I did feel as though I was part of that time whilst I was reading. 
Although DeadStar is, to a large extent, a character driven novel, the question of what happened to Garth Tyson is never far away from the reader’s mind. This kept me engaged the whole way through and as I was reading, building up a picture of Garth’s character and what happened during his time in the band, I enjoyed trying to guess myself where Garth is now. There are a few unexpected moments in Garth’s story which helped to make this process interesting

DeadStar is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: