Book Review: “The Final Revival of Opal & Nev” by Dawnie Walton

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

Generally speaking, I’m not interested in talking or reading about music, let alone Rock & Roll.  Music is something people do, live, and feel.

But, like every rule, exceptions happen.  These days we seem to be getting some decent fiction that really captures what Rock & Roll was all about, i.e., the whole cultural scene at that crucial hinge of history.   (I know it was the crucial moment in history, because that’s when I was 16—the history of the world obviously revolves around me. : – ))

O&N is another evocation of that crucial moment, with BLM and MeToo thrown in.  That could be preachy, but Walton does a good job with it. No, this isn’t just a gimmick, projecting today’s pet causes onto history.  It really, truly was that way.  Andwe really have been fighting these fights for a long time. Why do you think many of us are so damned exasperated to still be fighting over this stuff???

Anyway, Walton does get what I think is the essence of the era.  We came together in popular music, from all kinds of background, rich and poor, weird kids and outcasts and everyone.  Together we made and lived the music, and we were so-o-o innocent.  And we were so-o-o revolutionary.  At the same time. You have to have been there to know what I mean.

And, of course, despite our hopes, the music wasn’t enough to change the world.  I certainly didn’t keep us from growing up, from screwing up, from hurting and causing hurt, or from dying.

In the story, we see Opal & Nev, mismatched collaborators who, on a good day, make the most special music together.  But life is long, and most days aren’t good days.

Whatever they have together, it does not last long.  White boy Nev has a long, if artistically bland career.  Black girl Opal—angry BG Opal—is shut down, thrown out, and gets no appreciation for her art. 

A generation later, young journalist Sunny, self-described weird Black girl, is writing a book about O & N.  She has a personal connection to the story, more than one.  That’s not necessarily a good thing for professional journalism, but it sure as hell is Rock & Roll.

Sunny discovers that the story of O&N is a lot more complicated than the liner notes and gossip pages.  Why did they get together, and why did that work?  What did their music mean to them, separately and together?  What really happened to break them up?  Who is Nev really?  Who is Opal really?  

And, after decades, what can this possible reunion mean?

As always, Rock & Roll is a story of childhood, and childhood’s end, as well as our hopeless desire to stay childish forever (in the right ways).

As Opal remarks about her crucial turning point:

”When I was a child , I spoke s a child, I understood as a child….that moment was tied to a childishness that I grew out of immediately after that night: an illusion that I was unstoppable, that I was supreme, that I could play as white and as male as any of them who wanted a thing and set out to have it. It was an illusion that led me to do something very foolish and then fall on my ass.” (p. 217)

And Sunny recalls what Opal meant to her when she was growing up:

“It is far from a perfect album…  But the music, lyrics, and vocals on enough of the songs expressed a passion and a fury, a focus amid discord, a give-zero-fucks bravado that felt, in many ways, like a tribute.  Hearing it that first time triggered what I can only describe as a fear response inside my body….there’s nothing like the first time you take on a thing that scares the shit out of you and discover the intensity turns you all the way on.”

“[Opal] was building me fearless and strong, intellectual, creative…in other words, into the kind of badass chick my father would love….And yet, as she’d been for many a weird Black girl before and after, Opel Jewel was already my idol.” (p. 239)

That, my friends, is Rock & Roll.

Despite the music and the love, bad stuff happens.

But in the end, I think Sunny is going to be OK.  The promise of the music is to make us badass enough to do the right thing, stand by the people we love, and live to tell the tale after the sky falls in.

I’m hoping this novel contains large elements of autobiography as most first novels do.  If so, I know we’ll be hearing more from this fearless, strong, etc., badass, etc., chick.

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1. Dawnie Walton, The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2021.

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