POPULAR FICTION WENDY HOLDEN

GREATEST HITS

Cass Wheeler is a seventies folkrock singer, all long hair and floaty dresses. We meet her as she listens to her back catalogue in preparation for a greatest hits album. her career stretches from sweaty pub gigs to albums that define generations.

Cass’s central relationship is with the mercurial Ivor, but those with her troubled daughter, offbeat aunt, sculptor boyfriend and various hangerson are crucial, too.

Barnett’s style is poetic, perceptive and so fully realised it reads like an exceptionally well-written biography of a real person, with songs (which the author has actually recorded!) slipped in for a dab of extra verisimilitude.

a fascinating, occasionally sobering, portrait of fame.