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Mr Starlight, Laurie Graham
Fourth Estate
Reviewed by Nick Churchouse (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Mr Starlight is everything its title and cover suggests – a sequined sashay from working-class Birmingham to poolside Las Vegas with boats, broads and brotherly bickering all along the route.

Laurie Graham paints an all-too-familiar picture of sibling rivalry amidst a humble upbringing in middling England and weaves it into a journey of discovery for the star-crossed Boff brothers, Cled and Sel.

The chapters unfold into a seesaw story of fortunes, opportunities and quirky fates for the boys and their wider families. Told through the eyes of one brother, the tale is skewed towards a point of view that arouses happiness, frustration, incredulity and pity as a lifetime of dreams come and go.

A dysfunctional (if there can be any other kind) rise to stardom creates a sense of being for a dysfunctional family and delights the sense in us all that secretly wants to know it is not easy at the top. The story of Mr Starlight is such a marvellous rollercoaster ride of rhine stones and ritz that the very cockles of ones heart are tickled by its honesty and frankness.

The story itself draws many themes in, and in the dying pages provides an interesting exhibit of attitudes and hypocrisies that are as true to the naked human condition as they are a sign of the times in the mid 1900s setting.

Mr Starlight is a tale of everyday magic that turns on its head more than once, and finishes on a twinkling chord that is both melodious and mischievous.