Deep Cuts
A Novel
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4.0 • 78 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Tender as a ballad and pleasurable as a pop song, Deep Cuts is both a romp into the indie sleaze era of the early aughts and a timeless love story.”—Coco Mellors, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Sisters
Soon to be a major motion picture from A24!
“Deep Cuts will live alongside all the unforgettable music that Holly writes about so beautifully, with her whole heart.”—Cameron Crowe, Academy Award–winning writer/director of Almost Famous
A BOOK RIOT BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Look, the song whispered to me, that day in my living room. Life can be so big.
It’s a Friday night in a campus bar in Berkeley, fall of 2000, and Percy Marks is pontificating about music again. Hall and Oates is on the jukebox, and Percy—who has no talent for music, just lots of opinions about it—can’t stop herself from overanalyzing the song, indulging what she knows to be her most annoying habit. But something is different tonight. The guy beside her at the bar, fellow student Joe Morrow, is a songwriter. And he could listen to Percy talk all night.
Joe asks Percy for feedback on one of his songs—and the results kick off a partnership that will span years, ignite new passions in them both, and crush their egos again and again. Is their collaboration worth its cost? Or is it holding Percy back from finding her own voice?
Moving from Brooklyn bars to San Francisco dance floors, Deep Cuts examines the nature of talent, obsession, belonging, and above all, our need to be heard.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This compulsively readable novel kicks off like a fizzy rom-com—before getting delightfully messy. At the dawn of the 2000s in a Berkeley campus bar, English major Percy and aspiring singer-songwriter Joe bond over a Hall and Oates song. Lifelong pop nerd Percy has no musical ability, but she can dissect any song, including Joe’s. So she quickly becomes Joe’s sounding board, critic, and cheerleader—not to mention the best friend of his spiky girlfriend, Zoe. Over the next decade, this fascinatingly flawed trio grow together and apart in ways that are often unexpected but always feel incredibly real. Fans of Normal People and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow will love this compelling debut from author Holly Brickley. You’ll also want to make a playlist from the songs the characters obsess over on nearly every page.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brickley debuts with a refreshing story of love and ambition in the early 2000s indie music scene. The narrator, Percy Marks, meets aspiring musician Joe Morrow at a bar in Berkeley, Calif., where they're both in college. Joe, who has a "flawless jawline," appreciates Percy's discerning taste, and asks for her feedback on a song he's working on. She then helps with another song, which winds up launching his career a year later. She's happy for him, but wonders if she should have received a songwriting credit. Her bittersweet feelings intensify after she makes her first pass at him and he rejects her, preferring to keep her as his "critic." After she moves to New York City to study music writing, she enters a new relationship with a fellow writer. Though she knows Joe is sleeping with other women on tour, she still has feelings for him. Joe and Percy's saga reaches a tipping point after Percy has become a successful blogger and Joe, adrift without Percy's input on his music, takes to plagiarizing her writing. Brickley's sharp commentary on aughts indie rock will please music fans, but what makes this special is her portrayal of how Joe and Percy are bound by their creative drive even more than by romantic love. It's a banger.
Customer Reviews
New view, new lens
One of the many reasons I love this book is that it feels like no one else could have written it. While reading other compelling stories I’ve caught myself thinking I could write something like that, but I felt the exact opposite during this one. I have many favorite songs (some called out in this story) but before this book I didn’t have a clear view of how they might come to be or why they elicit an emotional pull, that’s both universal and personal. It’s delightful to hang out inside the mind of someone whose language I don’t speak at all. Thanks, Holly, for letting me in for a bit and for sharing these vivid characters and the alchemy behind their songs.
Couldn't put it down
This was a surprise. I finished this book in 1.5 days I loved it so much. While some of it was over my head (in terms of music structure), I resonates so much with the protagonist as she struggled for self acceptance and to embrace her gifts. I think I fell in love with the author just a little too. Highly recommend.
Fast and fun read
Fun book and will be a fun movie, too.