Watermark Books and Cafe

That song.  One glance at the little black 45 on the hot pink cover of the book and I was hooked.  Memories flooded in of riding the pep club bus to away games and singing our favorite David Cassidy hit “I Think I Love You” at the very top of our lungs.  We were high school girls in the early 70s when Keith Partridge first sang this song on “The Partridge Family” television show, so it wasn’t cool to openly admit to a passion For David…but the fact that we all knew the words to the song and sang it together every week suggests otherwise, doesn’t it?  Ah, the memories.

And that’s what this novel did for me…brought back lots of memories.  Pearson captures so well the overwhelming obsession that thirteen-year-old girls can have for an androgynous teen idol.  Paul McCartney, David Cassidy, Michael Jackson…right up to Justin Bieber!  

The basic premise of the novel is that two pre-teen Welsh girls are in love with all things Cassidy, and then as thirty-something women, they get the chance to actually meet David in Las Vegas.  There’s also a secondary storyline about a young man who works as the feature writer for *The Essential David Cassidy Magazine* and manufactures tidbits of David’s life, such as his likes and dislikes, but hates his job.   (I even congratulated myself for remembering that David’s favorite color was brown.  How upsetting to learn that was just a made-up detail for the fan mag’s that I, too, had believed to be true!)  

But the novel is not just a nostalgic walk down memory lane. Thirteen-year-old narrator Petra and the twenty-something magazine writer Bill have more in common than just David Cassidy—both are dominated by the opinions of their peers.  Pearson does a good job of describing how a girl will sacrifice her own self to the altar of friendship:  “You chose the kind of friends you wanted because you hoped you could be like them and not like you.  To improve your image, you made yourself more stupid and less kind…The shutting down of some vital part of yourself, just so you could be included…Now among friends, you were often lonelier than you had been before” (136).  And Bill as a young adult is still trying to impress those around him, especially his girlfriend who distains pop stars like David Cassidy.  He lies to her about interviewing the Stones and Eric Clapton when his real job mostly entails writing fake letters purporting to be from David on the set of *The Partridge Family*.  As a wannabe musician, Bill even goes so far as to manufacture an outrageous lie about jamming with David after he confesses to having interviewed him.  Bill doesn’t like who he is as the fake David any more than Petra likes her skinny, cello-playing self.  So decades later when both travel to Vegas to meet the former pop star, they are also on a journey to try and meet themselves and to discover what became of those young people they once were.  

The idea for this novel began in 2004 when the author was sent to Florida by the London *Daily Telegraph* to interview David who was about to turn fifty-four.  A transcript of that interview is included at the conclusion of the novel and is essential reading for his fans (then and now), if for no other reason than to acknowledge that “The David Cassidy that millions of us loved did not exist, not really; he was a brilliant marketing invention… [however] No girl could ask for a finer teen idol” (318-319).  

[Note:  I listened to this book on CD, brilliantly read and performed by actress Sian Thomas whose ability to utilize Welsh, London, and American accents gave an authenticity to the experience.  If you’ve never listened to audio books, you really need to come check one out from Watermark’s extensive collection of CD’s which are available for rent at $2.50 per week. We have many loyal listener-renters who began by renting an audio to listen to while on a road trip but who now listen to books on their daily drives.  I’ll even help you choose one!]  

Review by Shirley Wells