My Family and Other Rock Stars: 'from start to end - very, very good' Roddy Doyle

(Hardback)

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'witty and sweet, and perfectly captures the highs and lows of an extraordinary childhood' Andrew Miller

Tiffany's work is like you look out the window and there it is - the sun dancing in the sky . . . My Family And Other Rock Stars will make you grow wings. Get out there now and buy it. The ghost of David Bowie says that you really must' Patrick McCabe

In a small corner of a field in Wales, Tiffany Murray is hiding with Boggle the dog, dreaming of her mum's moussaka, blackberry and apple crumble, and, if she's lucky, ice-cold lemonade. A sheep bleats. The smell of hay tickles her nose. The twang of a guitar and crack of a snare carry on the breeze.

It's the late 1970s and Tiff lives with her mum, Joan, at Rockfield, the iconic recording studios. This place of legend, where some of the most famous rock albums of all time were recorded, is the background to a freewheeling, ever-changing whirlwind of a childhood. Tiff's days are spent running around the farm, making friends with local wildlife and helping out with the endless array of dishes her mum creates to keep the bands fed. She's looking for a dog, she's looking for a father; but the one constant throughout is her and Joan, building an unconventional family in the most unlikely of locations.

My Family and Other Rock Stars is Tiff's remarkable, truly unique story of growing up in a rural idyll, of Cordon Bleu cookery and of a childhood where the chances of bumping into Freddie Mercury playing piano, or a group of Hell's Angels turning up to record for Lemmy, or even the hope of David Bowie appearing, were as normal as hopscotch and homework.

Reviews

My Family and Other Rock Stars is sometimes charming, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes both funny and unsettling, and always - from start to end - very, very good -- Roddy Doyle
Tiff's book is an insane amount of fun. And such good company. Everyone's here, from Freddie Mercury to Elizabeth David - and of course, Mum, the indefatigable queen of the show. It's witty and sweet, and perfectly captures the highs and lows of an extraordinary childhood. Reading it felt like listening to a piece of music (a nice fat side of vinyl) I hadn't heard in too long, and then, alone in the kitchen, and at risk of breaking glasses and God knows, starting to dance. -- Andrew Miller
Tiffany's work is like you look out the window and there it is - the sun dancing in the sky. If Diamond Star Halo made you feel uplifted, My Family And Other Rock Stars will make you grow wings. Get out there now and buy it. The ghost of David Bowie says that you really must -- Patrick McCabe

Author Bio

Tiffany Murray's writing has appeared in Granta, the Guardian, the Telegraph, Sunday Times Style, GQ, Independent on Sunday and featured on BBC Radio 4. Her novels, Diamond Star Halo, Happy Accidents and Sugar Hall, have variously been shortlisted for the Wodehouse Bollinger Prize and received the Roger Deakin Award for nature writing. Tiffany has been a Hay Festival Fiction Fellow, a Fulbright scholar, a Senior Lecturer, a record company receptionist, and a dog walker in New York. She currently lives in a forest. My Family and Other Rock Stars is her first memoir.