The Ruins

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Richard and actress Ingrid Oliver have been married for almost a year ( Alan Chapman/Dave Benett/Getty Images)

The Ruins is narrated alternately by Adam and by Brandon through the notebooks and tapes he left behind. To really understand what Brandon was doing in London, Adam decides to impersonate him, spending time living at an expensive boutique hotel and hanging out with former band members. All the time, he has his laptop connected up to Rae, who is advising him on his investigations, and Robin (who thinks Adam is Daddy). Adam starts to fall in love with Rae and Robin, while Robin is in awe of the amazing city his ‘Daddy’ has built. But I shouldn’t sulk. I can only recommend this book to anyone who, like me, is daydreaming about concerts, an exciting life, London and a beautiful story that makes you laugh out loud at times. An ideal Desert Island Disk Ful Stop The trajectory of Suede - hailed in infancy as both 'The Best New Band in Britain' and 'effete southern wankers' - is recalled with moving candour by its frontman Brett Anderson, whose vivid memoir swings seamlessly between the tender, witty, turbulent, euphoric and bittersweet.

I was about the start the earthquake when the phone rang. It wasn’t to be a big earthquake – I was thinking of two, maybe three hundred dead. I love the band and I’m proud of the records but I wanted to do something that stood or fell on me alone. What’s it about? My thanks to Repeater Books for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Ruins’ by Mat Osman in exchange for an honest review.

England on Fire: A Visual Journey through Albion's Psychic Landscape". Watkins Publishing . Retrieved 27 May 2022.

'I’m always writing short stories...'

Ook de subtiele referenties naar Suedelyrics vond ik heerlijk (Suede is de band van de auteur, die ik onlangs zowat 25 jaar na de rest van de wereld echt ontdekte). Mijn enige puntje van kritiek is dat het woord suede een paar keer terugkomt in de tekst. Osman schrijft zo goed dat dat zijn talent eigenlijk een beetje ondergraaft. Osman met future Suede lead singer Brett Anderson in Haywards Heath, and they played together in early garage bands such as The Pigs and Suave And Elegant. Osman co-wrote some of Suede's songs, including "Lost in TV", "Europe Is Our Playground", " Attitude" and " Golden Gun". After Suede broke up in 2003, Osman provided music for television programmes, such as 8 Out of 10 Cats, The Marriage Ref and You Have Been Watching. [2] He returned to perform with Suede when the band reformed in 2010. [3]

Things you did at that point sounds like the new beginning – in what way was it similar to the things you did at the beginning of your career, with debut Suede and in what way was it different ? Thedebut from Suede founding member and bassist Mat Osman is an altered state of a novel, mixingthecrime of LA noir,theambient cityscapes of JG Ballard and dark language games of Thomas Pynchon, all imbued with a sensitivity tothemagical – and powerful – properties of making and listening to music.”— George Chesterton, GQ Mat Osman’s name may ring a bell with you – he does have a tall younger brother who’s big in TV called Richard – but his first claim to fame is as bassist of the band Suede, who were Britpop darlings in the 1990s, disbanding and reforming in 2010 to new critical acclaim. Osman has previously written pieces for many publications, but The Ruins is his first novel. No! I’m like: 800 000 into a novel. I’m always writing short stories…I get them down as the idea comes to my head. And I got terrible memory! I just write these things down…It’s important to me! I did some journalism. There’s Suede record I’ve been working on. I’ve been making some music with a friend of mine. One of the things that are great – you just get the sense of…When you're younger, you think about people the way older: “They can’t write anymore songs!”. And “What if this book is the only good idea I have in me ?”– and again, you just get to the point where: “What would you loose by trying ?”. Often, I spend 2-3 days working on something. Musically or writing. And at the end of it, you’re just: “It’s no good. It’s NO GOOD ENOUGH!”. I used to beat myself like that. Nowadays – it’s all good. Time is making music. Time is making art. It’s always: “What you would be doing ? Watching TV ?!”(laughs). It’s gonna be better, really. And it is what you’re doing! You’re exercising! You’re exercising your mental muscle all the time. With echoes of Performance, The Talented Mr Ripley and Mulholland Drive, The Ruins delves into the dark heart of fame: magic, music and murder.

As a founding member of the legendary British alt-pop band Suede, Mat Osman is truly in his element with this astonishing debut. His firsthand familiarity with the sweeps and dips of the British music scene informs his tale of reticent Adam and his twin, Brandon, who struggled with the ignobility of having been a musical also-ran. When Brandon is gunned down in London, Adam pairs up with Brandon’s widow to find answers. The Ruins is a novel about identity, seen through the eyes of a pair of identical twins who, on the face of it, as have as un-identical minds and lives as can be imagined. But, as you may imagine, they are closer to each other than they realise.