[tps_title]13. The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton[/tps_title]
The Final Revival of Opal and Nev is a blisteringly hot, gritty and realistic portrayal of the 1970s rock and roll era – the portrayal of the rise and fall of fictional Afro-Punk duo Opal & Nev.
The novel is written as an oral history of the band, from conception to its ultimate demise. From the moment the premise of the novel was published, the comparisons to Daisy Jones and the Six began. Both novels indeed are fictional oral histories, handling the 1970s era of rock and roll, with deeply complex female protagonists – Daisy Jones and Opal Jewel – with fictional ‘editors/authors’ whose parents are embedded within the story. However, though the skeletons of both stories are similar, the meat of both novels should not be compared. Enjoyable as Daisy Jones and the Six was, it was a frothier story of the glamour of 1970s rock and roll – where there was grit, the grit still sparkled. Dawnie Walton, by contrast, has created a deeply layered and textured novel that grabs a history of race relations in America with both hands, moulding it into a deeply compelling novel that breathes a life of its own. It is a vital novel.
Read our review here.
Pick up a copy here.
