A love story about two people
pulled apart by the same force that draws them together: music.
THE DEEP CUTS PLAYLIST
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 set Joe on a path to indie-rock stardom. But it also bruises Joe’s ego, and traps Percy in a role she resents. How long can Percy ignore the roars of her heart, and of her own unique talent, to protect their thrilling collaboration?
Moving from Brooklyn bars to San Francisco dancefloors, Deep Cuts examines the nature of talent, obsession, belonging, and above all, our need to be heard.
“Warm, nostalgic, totally engrossing. I loved this novel.”
—Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of The God of the Woods
“I absolutely loved Deep Cuts — clever and heart-wrenching and addictive, the kind of novel that grabs you in an instant and takes you reeling through its pages.”
— Miranda Cowley Heller, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Paper Palace
“Deep Cuts is an incredibly special book, one of the best I've read in a very long time. Moving, beautiful, rich with emotion, it's an epic love story and the story of a woman finding her creative power, all rolled into one. Extraordinary.”
—Beth O’Leary, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Flatshare and The Switch
“Tender as a ballad and pleasurable as a pop song, Deep Cuts is both a nostalgic romp into the indie sleaze era of the early aughts and a timeless love story of creative collaboration, competition and ambition.”
—Coco Mellors, author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein and Blue Sisters
“Every writer knows the highest compliment is envy: I wish I'd written that. Holly Brickley's Deep Cuts is a joy: fizzy, moving, endlessly smart. Brickley doesn't just write well about music, she anatomizes why and how we love it, and she makes us feel the stakes of that love. So: I wish I'd written that. The other person I'm envious of is you, because you're about to read this deeply wonderful book for the first time.”
—Claire Dederer, national bestselling author of Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
“Clever, nostalgic, and deeply geeky. Deep Cuts is a literary indie-pop classic—brilliantly constructed, with a raw, heartfelt energy that captures an era. I hadn’t thought of PJ Harvey for years and then suddenly there she was—there is such a range of music, I ended up listening to so many wonderful forgotten tracks while reading this.”
—Florence Knapp, author of the forthcoming The Names
“Brickley’s first novel lovingly evokes the indie scene of the early 21st century—and lots of other pop music as well—while deftly crafting the bumpy emotional journey of her insufferably opinionated, touchingly vulnerable heroine...A promising debut notable for sharp characterizations and a vividly conveyed sense of time and place.”
—Kirkus
Booksellers are Raving about Deep Cuts
“This is going to be huge. I inhaled this over the weekend, and I think it’s absolutely brilliant. I loved it.” —Stephanie Skees, The Novel Neighbor, Saint Louis, MO
“If I had to describe this novel in one word, it would be ‘electric.’” —Caleb Bedford, Lemuria Books, Jackson, MS
“Deep Cuts has Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and High Fidelity vibes. Without the messiness of life, unrequited love, and the harsh and difficult process of moving through our lives, our losses, and our loves, it is unlikely that we would have the wonderful music that we do. I think Brickley really brings that home in this lovely debut.” —Jessica Osborne, E. Shaver, Savannah, GA
“This debut novel is about creativity and love, how sometimes they get in the way of each other, but how sometimes you need both to write the perfect song.” —Stef Kiper Schmidt, Water Street Bookstore, Exeter, NH
“Deep Cuts is a total delight! It has such a distinct and tangible sense of time and place. I blazed through it.” —Amanda Toronto, Shakespeare & Co., New York City, NY
“Brickley captures an obsessive love of art and of people—both friends and lovers—so precisely my heart yearned right along with Percy on every page.” —Hannah Harlow, The Book Shop of Beverly Farms, Beverly, MA
“An exhilarating debut novel that is a love letter to indie rock and the relationships we build around music. The nostalgia and warmth radiates on every single page. It’s like watching a John Carney (Once, Begin Again, Sing Street) movie where you feel a deep connection with all of the characters and don’t want it to end.” —Michael Fusco-Straub, Books Are Magic, Brooklyn, NY
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