Diamond Star Halo
by Tiffany Murray
In large paperback at 16.25 euros.
At the tender age of five, Halo Llewellyn already knows that rock and roll is a dangerous business. She learned to walk to T-Rex’s Get it On and every night she listens to her father pray to the endless list of illustrious rock and roll dead, the heroes that inspired him to build Rockfarm, a legendary family-run recording studio in the Welsh Marches.
It’s the summer of 1977, and the Llewellyn family are greeting their latest booking, an American rock band called Tequila. Stepping off their silver tour bus in beautiful embroidered suits, the band cast a striking image against the backdrop of the Welsh countryside, and five-year-old Halo is immediately drawn to the band’s young and heavily pregnant singer, Jenny Connor. When the summer is over, the band depart, leaving more than memories behind. Resting on a bed, wrapped in a red cape, is baby Fred.
Growing up at Rockfarm, Fred is everybody’s favourite, especially Halo, and it soon becomes clear to his adopted family that stardom is in his veins. By 17, his ambition has propelled him out into the world, leaving behind a despondent Halo, who seems unable to get on with her own life. If only she knew how Fred really feels, if it’s possible to feel anything when thousands of people are shouting out your name. That’s the problem with falling in love with your charismatic almost-brother – it can never be a secret.
Inspired by the author’s childhood growing up at the legendary Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, where her father was a producer and her mother the in-house cook, Diamond Star Halo is a deeply seductive story of obsession, loss, love, family, magic and rock ‘n’ roll.
Tiffany Murray is the author of one previous novel, Happy Accidents, which the Daily Mail judged ‘inventive, funny and affecting, powerful without being mawkish’.
She studied at UEA, and has taught Creative Writing there, and at the universities of Bath, Manchester, Arvon and, most recently, Wales. Her first novel was shortlisted for the Bollinger/Wodehouse Prize for Comic Writing, and in 2005 she received an Arts Council Award. She divides her time between the Welsh Marches and the Algarve.
Tiffany is signing copies of both her books and talking about the business of writing from 6 to 8pm at the Griffin Bookshop today (Friday). Everyone is welcome to this event.
