Louise WenerReseñas

I first saw Sleeper at the Shepherds Bush Empire in May 1994, where they were supporting Blur on their Parklife tour. Their performance left more of an impression on me than the headliners': Louise Wener in her wide-eyed, breathy-voiced splendour, slashing at her Telecaster and singing punky songs about libido. The music press loved her, of course, continually sticking her on front covers and asking her how she felt about teenagers masturbating over her posters – a question that was rarely put, one noted, to Liam Gallagher or Thom Yorke.

Her Britpop memoir is smartly written and very easy to read; funnily enough, my favourite bits were actually the early parts, before she was famous, where she evokes the experience of growing up in the suburbs in the 80s and 90s really well. When she finally gets into the band stuff, she is somewhat light on details – we hear that she is touring with Elvis Costello, or going on Top of the Pops, but it's all a bit detached, and there are no details of, for instance, how particular songs were written, or where they came from.

Sleeper, despite their media-friendly exposure, were never quite a top-tier band, but perhaps that helped them avoid the worst depredations of heroin-based debauchery that seemed to overtake a lot of their compeers. ‘Fame,’ Wener concludes succinctly, ‘is a fiefdom of wank,’ and, as in The Last Party, one senses the nakedly aggressive competition that obtained between a lot of these Britpop groups. ‘We all loathe each other beyond redemption,’ she says, only half-joking.

Sleeper's own decline and fall was exacerbated by inter-band tensions – Wener was originally dating the guitarist, Jon Stewart, but left him for drummer Andy Maclure while touring – and when their tenth single went in at number 28, it was all over. By that point, only three years after I saw them on stage, Britpop had become mainstream business and there was no room left for mid-list underperformers. Surveying the landscape of the British music industry in the late 90s, Wener is understandably downbeat about how the movement worked out:

What happened to that battle? That slice of rock and roll sexual equality that we came for? It started with an attempt to level the playing field, but ended up in something altogether tamer and more dilute. You wake up one morning in the midst of the beer-swilling, coke-fuelled, self-important, macho parody that is Britpop's death rattle and say, haven't we been here before? Justine aping Christine Keeler on the cover of Select, Sonya Echobelly falling out of her shirt in i-D, Cerys Catatonia pouting half naked on the cover of a lads' mag, and how the hell did I end up being photographed in a wet-look PVC catsuit carrying a gun? I look ridiculous. Like sexy liquorice.

Wener is still married to Maclure – they have kids and live in a little terraced house in the suburbs. She sounds quite sanguine about the celebrity merry-go-round having left her behind – although, as she puts it: ‘the further pop life recedes into the distance, the more I think I didn't grab it and snog it nearly hard enough.’ Sleeper actually reformed last year for a few special gigs, so it's nice to think she managed to slip 'em the tongue a few more times, in the strange Britpop afterlife that this engaging book evokes so well.

A funny and heartfelt novel of high-stakes poker, lost love and gambling on oneself.

So I bought this book because I thought it would be about poker. And it was, kind of, but mainly that cover and blurb is doing some serious bluffing because it's about much more.

Audrey Ungar should be satisfied with her life--she's in her early thirties, she's traveled the world, she's a math genius, and she has steady employment, loyal friends, and the perfect-for-her boyfriend. However, for Audrey, there will forever be one thing missing: her father. Suffering from a gambling addiction, her father abandoned the family when Audrey was eleven years old. Audrey does everything she can to bring her wayward father's attention back to the family: she becomes a math prodigy and, when her genius gets her everyone's admiration but his, she turns to shoplifting. Because of his abandonment, the adult Audrey feels the need to obsessively control everything in her life.

Audrey's world is shaken, however, when her step-father reveals that her father tried to keep in touch with her long ago, but her step-father discouraged him because he felt the impact on Audrey could only be a negative one. This admission causes Audrey to seek out her father through the only thing he loved: the game of poker. Doing so brings Audrey into contact with Big Louie, an agoraphobic, obese, former card hustler who promises to teach Audrey the game and use his tournament connections to help Audrey track down the man who gambled away her childhood happiness. Such help doesn't come freely and Audrey finds that she has an impossible debt to pay for Big Louie's help.

The Perfect Play has very little to do with the game of poker and is more about the chances, gambles, and fortunes that shape our own lives. In learning about poker, Audrey's really seeking to understand the man who left her behind. But the danger in doing so is that Audrey probably already understands her father better than she realizes: both are mathematical geniuses, both have obsessive personalities, and both have a laser-like focus that shuts everyone else out. As Audrey becomes better at the game, we begin to wonder if Audrey realizes how precariously close she's coming to living out the sins of her father and risking everything and everyone she should value.

Louise Wener also sets up some clever bluffs throughout the narrative. Some things that seem a little cliche or implausible are turned on their head by the novel's end and a few of the plot lines that I scoffed at as predictably heading toward a particular end cleverly dodge in a different direction. Her strongest suit is creating believably flawed, yet incredibly likable characters. I really, truly like Audrey--something I can rarely say of women in fiction. The dialogue is often witty and funny, in a day-to-day sort of way. These conversations sound like those real people with genuine senses of humor and close relationships would have.

If the novel has a flaw, it may be that the poker game we all knew the novel would eventually be heading towards happens at the very end and seems somewhat rushed, lacking any real sense of tension. But, really, in the end, the novel isn't about the game anyway. It's about the players.

Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder

Those who like novels where everything ties up nicely and where every event has some significance in the final analysis will find much to enjoy here. Having enjoyed the light, chatty feel of the story I was surprised, not to say impressed, when I reached the end and realised how many important little details had been sneaked into the plot.

Beginning in Florida with the events of the space shuttle disaster of 1986, an event most people my age and above will remember well, there is a celestial theme running doggedly through the novel, even finding its way into the title, but it is rather more a story about relationships and the people and culture of Miami. Particularly impressive were the sections taking place in that city as the narrator Claire befriends wannabe star Tess (“I’m managed by a friend of Lenny Kravitz’s hairdresser”) – they felt as though they had been a lot of fun to write and consequently were a lot of fun to read. There was a serious side to the novel too, and in particular I thought the paragraph where Claire describes her late father was an outstanding piece of writing.

The were one or two negatives for me but they were very minor. First person present tense usually starts grating on me after a couple of hundred pages, like an overdose of something syrupy, and it was the same here. And I found it curious how Claire arrives in Florida after years and years away from the USA and starts talking about people “fixing coffee”. Nobody fixes anything in the UK unless it’s broken, or it’s a snooker match. Maybe it was meant to be a case of “when in Rome...” but it felt odd. Those things aside, I liked this very much and hope to read more by this author.

Actually quite readable and interesting insight into music biz and britpop

Original, quirky novel about a sister going to Miami in search of her missing brother, and redefining herself and place in the family to boot.

Good stuff. The first, pre-fame half is only ok (I tend to read recollections of teen years with the indignation of the once-miserable teen - "you call that an uncomfortable/geeky/miserable adolescence, that's nothing let me tell you"), but it's entertaining enough and well told - the whole thing zips along at a great pace. I was obsessed with music too and she grew up not far from me, so I get a lot of what she's talking about, even if her 80s reference points are different to mine. For me the book really swings into life in the second half, where Sleeper get together and become part of the mid-90s Britpop party. Three remarkably decadent years later, it all comes to a crashing and abrupt end, and, as small fish in the Britpop pond, Sleeper are thrown out to die on the lawn by their management. It's a really enjoyable read - Wener is a good writer, and comes across as a grounded and ordinary person. As a light, fun read, loaded with nostalgia for the likes of me, this is tough to beat. If you liked Britpop enough to remember Sleeper & their fellows with great fondness, then I recommend this heartily.

Very readable account of being fascinated by popular music and becoming a contender. Light, breezy and honest.

Fairly interesting especially the early part of the book about adolescence - well captured on paper - never heard of 'Sleeper' but a little after my pop music years½

Claire and her brother Daniel are quite close in age.They lived in Florida as children, as their dad worked on a hotel rennovation, and Daniel - now grown up and quite well off with a young family has gone missing.

Claire and ex-husband Michael travel in what they hope are his footsteps to find him, a lost soul, who has suffered an awful event in his childhood that has shaped his life.½

While I never followed the band Sleeper, I was aware of them – their singles were fun and tuneful. However their singer, Louise Wener, did stand out from the crowd with her big brown eyes, pouty lips and great haircut – there were few other girls involved in successful Britpop bands. Reading her wonderful memoir of her life in Pop, I can say I bonded with her from the beginning, as she recounts sitting with microphone in hand taping the chart show (been there, done that), and also a shared love of David Cassidy – she’s only a few years younger than me, so musically I’m right at home with her all the way.

It also helps that Wener is an established novelist these days having swapped guitar for the pen some years ago. She can really write, and the result is a hugely entertaining memoir, full of wonderful stories, and self-deprecating wit – she’s not afraid to turn the spotlight on herself at all.

Born to a Jewish family in north London, Louise was the youngest by several years in her family. The first chapters recount teenaged years at school where she was geeky and introverted, and bullied by the girls with perfect skin. A gap year followed sixth form; Wener went on a Kibbutz, and had a whale of a time, but was brought back down to earth arriving in Manchester to study English, but she did meet Jon Stewart and they started a band. After uni they moved down to London and found a bass player and drummer Sleeper was born with her older brother as manager. They got their break supporting Blur, and the big-time beckoned …

There’s something about a tour itinerary that lists Barcelona, Milan and Berlin in its dates that’s making me hysterically resistant to the lowest common denominator, herd mentality of rock band touring: the endless communal meals where we have to find a cafe that serves egg and chips because half the crew is vegetarian and egg and chips is all they will eat. The living in each other’s pockets on the tour bus, smelling the tattooed roadie’s farts, listening to each other’s shitty music and filthy night-time snores.

This is my first time touring on a sleeper bus. A glorifed caravan with coffin-like compartments to sleep in and everyone huddled up on a banquette at the back, smoking and drinking and watching Spinal Tap for the 53rd time. There are rules on the tour bus. Don’t poo in the toilet; it can’t take it. Sleep with your feet facing forward, in case you crash like Bucks Fizz. Respect each other’s privacy and space. Difficult one, this: save for the sliver of curtain by your bunk there’s no real privacy to be had.
She makes it sound like so much fun! She recounts the highs and lows: the pressure to keep the band together, to write new songs, always being considered the front of the band because she’s a woman, splitting up with Jon, then falling in love with drummer Andy. They had the sense to bow out on a relative high, before the singles failed to chart. She obviously got a lot out of it even with all the stresses and strains.

This is an intelligent and witty memoir which I would heartily recommend to anyone who enjoyed Britpop – I loved it. I’ll definitely check out some of her novels – if they’re anything like this book in style, they’ll be fun too. (9/10)½

I really enjoyed 'Worldwide Adventures in Love' also by Louise Wener and so I was interested to read about the person behind the book. I laughed out loud continually throughout the book and found her school days experiences very easy to relate to - loved the Goal Attack Girls stories (I wasn't one either). As I love live music I found the background to her music career fascinating - hearing it from a performer's point of view was great as were her tour descriptions. Two of my favourite themes wrapped into to one - seventies childhood plus music scene. A very funny and riveting read.½

I love Louise Wener's novels, so was interested to read this memoir, despite never having been a particular fan of Sleeper, the band she was lead singer with.

The first half of the book covers growing up in the 70s and 80s and had some nostalgic moments for me. This section also covers Louise's musical influences. The second half looks at her time with Sleeper and their rise to having top 20 singles and appearing on Top of the Pops.

As I would have predicted, the first half was by far my favourite bit. It made me smile and brought back memories, and the writing was excellent. The second half wasn't so interesting for me, but that's because I prefer stories of family life and growing up, to stories of how fame was achieved. However, the whole book is a great read and a lot of fun.½

I like how this whole story plays out. From the beginning where we are introduced to Jessie and Margaret, two young growing teenage girls meeting the mysterious Edith with a secret past. On the day Edith's house catches fire, Jessie and Margaret's life as they know it veered completely off course.

This book deals with growing up in a torn family and dealing with loss. It is narrated by Jessie and accompanied by letters from Edith. It was an interesting read and kept me completely fascinated with each turn of event.

A wonderful, wonderful book

This is the tale of a teenage girl growing up in the 70's who is dealing with all

that that brings plus the break up of her parent's marriage. It is a brilliant and

perceptive portrayal of family life and also the difficulties of growing up.

Alongside this is the story - told through letters - of a young female explorer in

the 1930's. At times the two lives parallel each other. I love the way the two

stories are woven together - Louise Wener's writing flows from one story to the

other. I was totally engrossed and consumed by this book and consequently it

was a quick, yet thought provoking read.½

What a delightful book to read! The author gets into the skin of Jessie a young teenager and writes the story wholly from her point of view. Growing up in the 1970’s Jessie and her younger sister Margaret are thrown in to the turmoil of separating parents. Alongside is the story of a neighbour Edith whom the girls get to know briefly before she dies in a house fire.
Since the author so masterfully writes from a child’s point of view, the reader is able to experience the rollercoaster of emotions that can devour you at Jessie’s tender age. The toe curling embarrassment of your parent’s behaviour, the love and hatred of friends and relatives and the dull familiarity of routine at home. Jessie muddles through this disruptive time looking for support from her sister who is suffering her own private turmoil. Interspersed with the sisters’ plight is the poignant story of Edith told by personal letters.
This book is well crafted. The story develops slowly and engrosses the reader to the point where you really care what happens to all of the main characters. I would definitely look for more to read by this writer.

Top Bird½

OK confession time: as a college student about ten years ago I had a poster of Ms. Wener on my wall. It’s with mixed feelings then that I come to review her new novel, where her transition from Britpop pinup to serious author seems almost complete. THE HALF LIFE OF STARS is primarily the story of a dysfunctional family and the effects that resonate from a holiday to Florida at the time when the space shuttle exploded in the sky. There’s an effective whodunnit/mystery element to the storyline and Wener steers neatly away from clichés and pop culture references, but ultimately the effect is like reading a middle-period Douglas Coupland novel. I found myself wishing it about a third better, sadly.