Anyway... my next invited quoter is Tiffany Murray.
She has not only written one of the books I've enjoyed most for a long long time but it features one of the wildest old woman I've read about recently. And I thought my Mrs Oliver in GETTING THE PICTURE was wild.
Diamond Star Halo is completely enchanting, every bit as good as I Capture The Castle, and even Cold Comfort Farm - two of my favourite books so that's a big claim for me. Tiffany's main character, Halo, was born to be a drummer. Literally. When she was born she bounced off some drums in her parents recording studio. She lives on Rockfarm in Wales, which is just that - a farm for rock stars - and it's the story of what happens after an American band come to record there. Or more importantly, who is left behind after the band have gone.
Music runs through it, which isn't surprisingly when Tiff's biography drops in about how part of Bohemian Rhapsody was written in her house when she was a child. Here are her choice of the ten best Rock'n'Roll novels.
Anyway, as I said, in Diamond Star Halo Tiffany has created the BEST old woman ever. Here's what she says about her...
Nana Lew, who from the age of seventy to one hundred years old, has a live in lover, Rhysie the postman, (a man who delivers more than her letters). Nana has a red silk silk petticoat. Nana worships Johnny Cash.
Yes! I love her!
She also has her very own capel lined with bones*.
(*Nana Lew, that is, not Tiffany. I don't think so anyway.)
And Tiffany has chosen two songs for the competition.
The first is Old Friends/Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel. She says, "since I was a kid I've always pictured this song as a short story about two old lovers (I think some songs are the best short stories)." And the bit of the lyrics she picked goes:
'Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settle like dust on the shoulders of the old friends.'
Tiffany comments: "There's something so beautiful about two old lovers sitting there as the buzz of the city whisks about them."
and here's her second...
Oh, does it get better?
1 comment:
What a pity 'Getting the Picture' wasn't reviewed on the BBC2 review programme last night. They featured love and sex in the elderly and I thought their choices were just a bit boring!
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