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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Juicy Novel Reminds Me of Phil & Ronnie Spector, July 9, 2007
This review is from: Meet the Annas: A Musical Novel (Paperback)
There is still such a fan following for 1960s girl groups that it's nice to see a solid novel using that era as a backdrop. This story is mostly set in present day, with numerous flashbacks to the 1960s to reveal glimpses of the storyline.
Mostly it's the story of Dink Stephenson, who as a young songwriter in the early 1960s, penned girl-group songs with his school chum, Princess. The scenes of how they started writing together and eventually hooked up with an unknown girl group (and helped them become successful) were my favorite parts because they seemed so authentic and serve as a rare glimpse of what that life could have been like.
But most readers will be entranced with Anna herself, who by the photo on the cover seems designed to look like Ronnie Bennett, lead singer of the Ronettes. Like Ronnie, Anna was a good girl who just acted bad, dressing in tight dresses and using scandalous amounts of eye makeup. In fact, the Annas seem patterned heavily on the Ronettes, as the two other members are Anna's sister and cousin. It's no surprise that a leading character is "Punky" Solomon, whose initials happen to be the same as legendary girl-group producer Phil Spector. In fact, much of the novel centers on a trial for songwriting credits with Dink, our leading man, vs. Phil--oops, I mean Punky.
Like in the old days, producers slapped their own name and sometimes that of business associates on the songwriting credits to distribute the cash in the way they wanted. In this case, Dink and Princess are the sole writers of "Love Will Cut You Like a Knife," the last song of the Annas which flopped in the 1960s but in present day has come back as a retro hit and is widely used in commercials--thus prompting the lawsuit. In this story, Punky had added his own name as songwriter (if you didn't believe he was patterned after Spector, that should do it) along with that of his thug friend Manny.
Actually, the book is fiction, since in this story Anna herself died under mysterious circumstances back in the 1960s. As the trial unfolds, we learn how many of the men around Anna loved her--and the only one she really loved in turn.
The discovery of Anna's secret diary, Manny turning violent, and other twists really give the ending of this book a punch. If you want a captivating story, you have it here. If you want to re-live the 1960s from the inside perspective, that's here, too, in rich detail--writing songs on the old piano while Mom yells from downstairs; finding raw talent at a local club; being in the studio with a talented producer who creates a special sound; being young and less jaded and seeing the future as a bright pathway ahead.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mascara, Mystery and Magic, July 1, 2007
This review is from: Meet the Annas: A Musical Novel (Paperback)
Meet the Annas is the compelling story of a girl-group trio who had their 15 minutes of fame in the 1960s but who left behind a trail of mystery, heartbreak and mayhem that followed their collaborators into present day.
It's a well-written story that drives you page to page, the story beginning with songwriter Dink's lawsuit against legendary producer "Punky" Solomon over songwriting credits for a 1960s flop from the Annas that has since transformed itself into a gold mine for being used in current-day commercials.
Dink loved Anna back then but has since retreated to a quiet life as a high school music teacher in Arizona. The lawsuit brings him back to New York, back to the old gang, and back to old memories that uncover secrets of the past.
This novel has it all: the fun and innocence of bringing an unknown group to the top in the 1960s; the seamier side of music-business money; and a deep, changing mystery that surprises you at the end. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, there's even not one but two new twists that pitch the story to an even higher level. An engrossing, fun read!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Punchy and poetic tale of regret, yearning and '60s Rock 'n' Roll, March 16, 2008
This review is from: Meet the Annas: A Musical Novel (Paperback)
I absolutely loved reading this novel! I read it in 9 days and had I not been required to go and earn a living everyday, I would have read it one sitting. It's a tense yet poetic yearning for a time, music and attitude long confined to the realms of memory. It's also a great murder-mystery story without stale cliches and with enough unexpected twists that will leave the reader (well, me at least) open-jawed. It's also punctuated by vivid characterisations and engagingly real human relationships. And this leads me to my one major criticism of Meet The Annas in that it's abundantly clear that story is pretty much a re-write of the real life stories of Phil Spector and The Ronettes with a few juicier elements thrown in for the purposes of the novel. Even the court case stems from the true story (The Ronettes sued Spector for unpaid royalties at some stage). So in that regard, there is a slightly disappointing lack of imagination at work in places and I feel that maybe Dunn could have done more to make his main characters more distinct from their real-life inspirations.
However, the positives of this novel ultimately outweigh that (very) minor quibble. The embellishments that he adds to the "true" story are so clever and well-thought out that while you're reading it, you hardly notice that the templates for the characters were real people. Structure-wise, the story is told in Godfather II-style timeshifts, flitting effortlessly from the youthful optimism and dreaminess of '60s Queens and LA to the burnt-out, regretful middle-age of '90s Manhattan. Throughout the novel, there is an undercurrent of sadness, of places and people gone forever through the ravages of time. There's a great scene when the central character finds himself walking around the city one evening and finding a record store with outrageous prices for girl group memorabilia and wondering to himself how this "old stuff" came to have such tremendous monetary value, a situation I'm sure we've all found ourselves in.
Another great thing about this book is that Dunn clearly loves the old Rock 'n' Roll and Pop of the '60s. How many people writing about this kind of stuff these days can you say that about? And all the little details, the fashions, recording sessions, what music meant to people back then etc, he gets bang on, absolutely right.
I'm really glad someone like Dunn exists, someone who has such a sharp imagination, engaging literary style and a genuine love for Rock 'n' Roll, a love that's going increasingly out of fashion as each year goes by. Not to mention a story telling ability that lingers with you for days afterwards.
4.8 stars.
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