Deep Cuts

by Holly Brickley

The Borough Press

I love, love, LOVED this book!!  I didn’t actually know till I looked it up that a ‘deep cut’ is the term musicians use for the lesser know songs on an
album and of course there’s the more literal definition of being hurt or wounded…

Percy and Joe meet at university in California in the early 2000’s.  They
might not know a lot about life but they both know a lot about music! When Joe asks if he can play her a song he’s written, Percy quickly realises a few things:
1. Joe has some serious potential,
2. She can make his music even better,
3. He would always be the star and she would always be in his shadow and 4. life is so complicated when your heart gets involved…

The books is filled with glorious references to music and musicians not to mention wonderful writing about music. Click here for the seriously cool and nostalgic Deep Cuts playlist on Spotify.

While the book isn’t autobiographical, Brickley said there are certain aspects plucked from her own life — the cities Percy lives in, the jobs she has, the schools she attends and the music she listens to during the same period Brickley herself was doing all those things. …Setting the story in the 2000s, or the oughts as they’re known to some, meant fewer technologies for accessing music and communicating with others, something Brickley appreciated as she looked back on those years. …”Now, [technology] follows us out into the bars and clubs and pulls us away from each other, but back then it seemed to only want to help us connect. The iPod, I think, was the most glorious moment in modern technology when you could have thousands of songs on a device in your pocket, but your boss couldn’t email you on it. We should have stopped there.”

And, work on the Deep Cuts movie has already begun. Starring Saoirse Ronan and Austin Butler in the lead roles. How perfect?

Watch my review on instagram