The Final Revival of Opal&Nev Review

"The Final Revival of Opal&Nev" by Dawnie Walton is an oral history of the rise to fame and eventual dissolution of the sensational duo as they prepare for a final reunion. Told through newspaper clippings, old interviews and conversations with journalist S. Sunny Shelton, what was supposed to be nothing more than a nice piece of marketing before their tour, uncovers an allegation that could change everything.

General Impressions

Before you accuse this book of being a Daisy Jones rip-off, shut your mouth and read it.

Yes, there are similarities: it's an oral history set in the 1970s about a band that broke up at their peak, there are opioids involved and there is a particular emphasis on the way women are treated by the public. But that is where the similarities end because one of the biggest themes in this book is race, both in the 1970's music scene overt racism through Opal's recollections and present-day misogynoir and micro-aggressions, through Sunny's experiences, that sadly have a lot in common, the more you read.

Opal and Sunny

Opal is no doe-eyed pretty white girl whose damage can all be blamed on a crappy childhood and uninterested parents. She is a black peripheric woman being told by everyone around her to curb her expectations, accept what she is given and be grateful for the crumbs. Well, Opal doesn't ask. She knows her value and demands what she's due as she follows her dreams, all the while being screwed over by the people around her and the world she lives in. That is not to say she is perfect but she is as fully aware of her faults as of her many talents. By the point this book is being written, Opal is a 70-year-old being interviewed about the person she was as a child and in her twenties and I liked that she seemed to like and respect the person she had been and the things she had gone through.

The "author" of this book, S. Sunny Shelton's story ends up being told as well not only as of the daughter of Opal's previous drummer and lover but as a fellow black woman that despite being separated from Opal's world by fifty years, several cities and prestigious education and job, finds herself dealing with the same kind of backstabbing, misogynoir and discrimination as Opal and eventually pays very much the same price.

This being a book about race and gender, meant that it was also a book where sisterhood and community played huge parts. The first in the way women often were the ones that looked out for each other in male-dominated environments and the second, when it came to the way that segregation and the racial divide barred black characters from finding solace or understanding anywhere else than with others that looked like them, no matter their circumstance or other differences as in the case of Jimmy Curtis' murder.

Jimmy Curtis

This was the part and perhaps the character that touched me the most in this entire book and seeing as Opal is here, that is something.

We start this book knowing one thing: during an Opal&Nev show, Jimmy Curtis, a black man was violently murdered by a crowd in front of hundreds of people. As the chapters go on we learn more about his life, death and legacy - but only from other black people's mouths. A black man died and no one was convicted, no one cared, no one mourned him, except for them. That it was a crime was rarely even acknowledged: the language used by all the white characters when it came to Jimmy's life and death was completely different from the language used by everyone else. For the newspapers, the white fans, the police, his death was no tragedy and he was no victim. His name was not even important enough to be mentioned in many cases. After all, he was there and that was enough as a black person to become part of the problem while every other white individual became a victim of his (and Opal's) rage. When you face off white tears against black pain, the victor is always the same throughout the entire book, in every situation, every decade, everywhere.

Barely remembered by those he had worked beside and the world at large, Jimmy's many good deeds went unreported: an entire life of art, music, mentorship - blotted by white outrage over their precious children's innocence as a man was robbed of his life.

Jimmy is always seen and remembered by everyone else except on one occasion. An obscure interview in which he talks about "innate black talent" compared to the classic training that seems to be only open to white people and how one is seen as effortless and consequently lesser while the other is seen as an art form. We all grow up learning about POC artists from every walk of life that had to teach themselves and succeeded despite the time they were born in and that quote really opened my eyes to how their work and mastery of their craft was often the result of a refusal to support the creation of conservatories, music schools or any kind of recognized institution where anyone other than white (rich) people could learn.

Conclusions

This was transcendent. From the characters to all the different ways their stories were told, the cameos with quotes by real artists (that I want to see happen in a future adaptation) to the very bittersweet ending that I loved for its honesty...this was an all-around brilliant book that deserves all the attention Daisy Jones got. And yet, somehow I doubt it while hoping to be proven wrong.

Thank you to Quercus for sending me this book proof.

Rating: 5/5