Alma Cogan

Gordon Burn puts a pen in the hands of Alma Cogan and she, obligingly, gives us her ‘memoir’. Cogan was a ’50’s hitmaker in Britain known as much for her gowns, as for her music. Her popularity waned with the advent of rock.

Burn uses Cogan’s story to meditate on fame and fandom, on notoriety and the impulse that drives people to seek at least a reflection of the public spotlight. Burn interweaves Alma’s story with that of a mass murderer from the same period in England, Myra Hindley. Burn leaves it for the reader to mull over the loose connection between the two.

Intermittently interesting as it was, and as successful in tackling an important and contemporary topic as Burn is here, I was put off by his writing style.

This is a weirdly compelling book mixing up an imagined life of Alma Cogan (who in real life died in 1966, but in this book lives on in an isolated cottage) and the history of the Moors Murders. Vivid imagery, lurid descriptions of concerts, events and people. It builds up to quite a crescendo.

This is an out of print book that I can’t get on Kindle because I don’t live the US therefore I’m giving it a negative review based on I don’t wanna have to buy another paperback book and scan it even if it’s cheap. I was interested to read this book because I thought it would be fun, but I didn’t expect to learn anything more about the Beatles until I saw a YouTube video on the subject. I am also giving it a low rating based on the opinion of another WordPress blogger who said that he took some unrelated murder mystery and put it into the plot about Alma and the Beatles, etc. I thought that is not a good idea. The author caused significant pain to the families who were affected by the murder.