Rock novels

In The Times, Tom Cox assesses thirty years of attempts by authors to write novels about rock music.

What novelist with a big record collection wouldn’t be excited at the prospect of writing about rock’n’roll life: the internal politics, the heartbreak, the potential for myth-making? Nonetheless, the rock-novel genre contains some of history’s most misguided books. Bad fake music journalism disguised as fiction for people who don’t read fiction? Literary slumming from writers who really should know better? Overexcited fan-boy ramblings? It’s all here.