John Niven made the jump from music biz A&R man to successful author and screenwriter with relative ease. His first book, 2008’s record industry satire Kill Your Friends, brought him success, but Niven’s personal life was dealt a devastating blow when Gary – his “fearless, popular, stubborn, handsome, hilarious and sometimes terrifying” younger brother – took his own life in 2010, aged 42.
“I was the ‘good boy.’ The apple of the eye. Brainy. Studious. Gary was the one who could ‘start a fight in an empty house’, as dad sometimes said,” writes Niven in O Brother. “We base our opinions of ourselves on the opinions of our parents or grandparents”. The Niven brothers’ lives are traced herein, from Gary’s passing back to their childhood: mischief-filled teenage years spent following The Clash, downing cans of lager and trying to hide love bites with toothpaste.
O Brother harnesses the cultural backdrop of punk in the late 1970s through to the raves a decade later, while readers of a certain age will recognise that early-80s moment Niven describes: Pringle jumpers, wedge haircuts and The Human League’s Dare album elbowing their way into the zeitgeist, making your bondage trousers and blue vinyl copy of the UK Subs’ Another Kind Of Blues seem like artefacts from a bygone era. On a more serious note, O Brother is an intricate and brave memoir about sibling relationships, regret and healing: heartbreaking and angry, if at times still hilarious.
O Brother, John Niven (Canongate)
Price: £16.99. Info: here
words DAVID NOBAKHT