Author:Jacqueline Crooks
This debut novel, set in the Caribbean community in London, Bristol and ultimately Jamaica as the seventies turn into the eighties, is the story of Yamaye, a young Black woman who lives for dancing at all night reggae sessions. She loses herself in the dark and the dub, finding an escape from a mundane and difficult life outside. And then she meets Moose, falls in love, and seizes the chance for contentment and satisfaction. But Babylon has other plans…
I’m a huge fan of Jamaican-inspired music, and this book is soaked in it. It’s some of the best writing about music I’ve ever read, the words thrum and sing with horn stabs and skittering cymbals, and pulse with a deep slow bass throb. It’s alive to music in a way so many books about the subject aren’t (compare and contrast to Marlon James’ …Seven Killings, for instance, which for all its many other virtues is almost completely tone deaf, in a novel about Bob Marley of all people). There’s a terrific rhythm to the language, as though it’s being told to you in person. I don’t usually do audiobooks but i’d love to hear this as one (with a dub underpinning, naturally).
The story is vivid and involving, with sharp characterisation and a living breathing cast you come to care about. When something nasty happens about a third of the way in, it’s a proper gut punch. Linton Kwesi Johnson taught me about sus laws and Misty In Roots about Babylon, but Ms Crooks’ novel made me feel them. I’m going to miss Yamaye. Hope she’s okay.
It’s not out till early next year, but advance warning – you’re going to love it.
Length of Read:Medium
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
chanting down Babylon
One thing you’ve learned
don’t trust crabs
“And then she meets Moose”…wait, WHAT?
I was 7 years old in 1981, this is a very dark story indeed.
oh no, I’ve made a terrible mistake.
How do you think Yamaye feels?
Thanks for this @kid-dynamite. I’m sold for sure. I spent a stupid amount of time in various Bristol blues in the ’80s, and I wish, oh how I wish, I could stroll back in there again these days. Red Stripe and reefer. Joe Gibbs et al. This’ll do nicely as a reminder of exciting days if it’s as good as you say it is.
I did think of you when I was reading it! I’d love to have been there as well.
@kid-dynamite have you seen this?
There are 5 parts to this little docu that shows the St. Pauls that I lived in from 1979 to 1983 or thereabouts.
this looks great, thanks! Will work through it on my day off
That was interesting. I don’t think that the BBC make any community programmes equivalent to that these days.
It reminded me of the Daddy G DJ Kicks compilation, which is a mix with a dub vibe throughout, but includes a real a real variety from Willie Williams, Tricky, Massive Attack, the Meters and Les Negress Vertes. Worth checking out if that is your thing.
That does look excellent, @Alias. Some kind soul has created a playlist with almost all the tracks on Spotify.
Love those Nusrat ‘Mustt Mustt’ remixes – I have one on a white label 12in that I have never seen anywhere else; I picked it up from a rack in a corner shop in Handsworth one lunchtime while scouting for DCS bhangra discs!
Thanks for posting. That’s on my to buy list.
That sounds stupendous. I suspect that @duco01 will be very keen about it too.
Who is the publisher and how do you get the chance to read it before it’s even in the bookstores??You don’t need to answer that!
Interesting comment about the the-deafness of Seven Killings, a book I’ve heard great things about but have been a little deterred by its length.
I had an advance copy via NetGalley, thanks to my job having a (somewhat tenuous) connection to bookselling.
Seven Killings is well worth a read as it’s very good in every other respect, but there’s a curious hole in it where there should be some scorching descriptions of music
NetGalley seem to be doing a rather good job of creating a buzz about Fire Rush before it hits the bookshops.
I’ll have to ask Kulturhuset here in Stockholm to try and book Jacqueline for one of their author visits in 2023. Not so far-fetched a hope actually!
Would you believe it?
Ms Crooks has already put together a Spotify playlist to listen to while reading her novel. I’ll go for that!
https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2022/07/fire-rush-jacqueline-crooks-playlist
those are some pretty spoilerific explanations for the tracks!
Good comment @Kid Dynamite. I just started to listen to the music and enjoying it without reading the comments.
You’re absolutely right. Creating a cracking vintage reggae playlist is a great idea. Giving away details about the plot is not such a clever idea.
Shall I write to the publisher or do you want to do it?
This sounds like a wonderful book and I do not want them to kill it before it has even hit the streets.
My advice? Keep the wonderful playlist! But delete those notes. Now!!
Great stuff. I’ve ordered a copy for a
Christmasbirthday present to myself.I was trying to find out a little more about Jacqueline Brooks and stumbled across this.
A week is a long time in publishing. I am sure @mikethep can relate to this.
https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/harpercollins-bags-first-biography-of-liz-truss-by-harry-cole-and-james-heale
Well I can only relate in an abstract sort of way, because an instant biography of Liz Truss by a couple of right-wing hacks would have sent my bullshit meter right off the scale. Talk about karma. No doubt they’re knocking out Liz Truss: The Wilderness Years right now.
Wonderful comment @mikethep. That cracked me up. Karma indeed!
I wonder what happened to the hacks who got signed up to write Boris or Bust: the Rees Mogg Story.
Assume you’ve seen this:
That book won’t get into the black.
Talking of Brizzle, this popped up on my iPlayer. Stone me, they were good.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07thrcg/unfinished-the-making-of-massive-attack
For those of you who indulge, this is 99p on the Kindle Store now!
Thanks. For 99p, it would be rude not to.
An enjoyable read, but a couple of clangers annoyed the pedant in me.
She describes ceiling lights as “small LED lights that glint like stars” but this is in 1980 or ’81. White LEDs were not commercially available until late 1996. Perhaps the ceiling was dotted with red, green and amber LEDs, which were all that were available until the blue LED in 1989, and reminded her of Mars (and whichever planets appear to be green or yellow).
Shortly afterwards she describes packing a Walkman in a bag, but the first Sony Walkman available in the UK was not launched until late 1981, was very expensive so the protagonist was unlikely to have had one, and they took another year or two to become commonplace.
I’ve got “Fire Rush” on my shelf, ready to read. Am naturally a bit disappointed to hear of some inaccuracies.
But wait a minute …
A Sony Walkman was bought as a present for me in March 1981. I know that for definite, because I took it with me to France when I started working there in April 1981.
And this site (don’t know how reliable it is) says that the Sony Stowaway was launched in the UK in April 1980, and was rebranded as the Walkman only 3 months later. This would date the first sales of the Walkman in the UK to around July 1980….
https://shapersofthe80s.com/2020/04/24/1980-%E2%9E%A4-40-years-of-musical-freedom-thanks-to-what-we-brits-enjoyed-calling-the-sony-stowaway/
Which is why I said “unlikely”, but not impossible. Forgive me, for I am very dull.
The TPS-L2 was launched in Japan on 1st July 1979, then branded as the ‘Sound-About’ in the USA (June 1980), the ‘Stowaway’ in the UK (end of April 1980) and the ‘Freestyle’ in Sweden.
The first global ‘Walkman’-branded model (WM-2) launched in Japan in February 1981. So you must have had one hot off the press.
https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/discover-sony/a-brief-history-of-the-tps-l2-walkman/ba-p/1960634
I didn’t know that the Walkman was known as the Freestyle in Sweden.
Can this explain the name of this enormously popular Swedish pop combo?
Classic Swedish teen pop. “I want to have you in the darkness”
Did you have a Freestyle, @Locust? Silly question! I’m sure you were one of the very first to get one.
Completely at a tangent, did any of you know that Germans call a mobile phone “a handy” ?
Last time I went to Frankfurt I went to the Museum of Communication. In a display case was a Motorola ‘handy’. I had the same model in my pocket.
I bought my Freestyle in 1983, to drown out the noise of the machines I worked with at my first job – their deep drone made me lose concentration and almost fall asleep. With the Freestyle I was saved by the mixtape!
The band Freestyle was the soundtrack of the uppehållsrum at school.
They were popular because they delivered teenage dreams – the lyrics, the music, a cute member of the band for every preference… 😀
I’m surprised you didn’t know that it was called a Freestyle here, @kaisfatdad – have you never heard the old Lotta Engberg Eurovision hit “Boogaloo”, with the immortal lyrics:
“Boogaloo, dansa rockenråla, spela freestyle med fräck musik!” Lol…