re:mote voices

Title: Namedropper
Author: Emma Forrest
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Viva Cohen is a 17-year-old school, moved from New York to London to stay with her gay uncle after her parents split up, so he has raised her with a love of Elizabeth Taylor and other classic stars. Her two best friends are Treena and Ray. Treena is her best friend in school, a stunning blonde bombshell, oblivious of her good looks and the effect they have on people. While Ray is a bonafide pop-star, a friendship based on the fact that Viva really doesn't care about who he is and how famous he is.

Life goes on as normal, she hangs out with her friends, and wallows in her ideas of a golden age. Ray calls her a namedropper, always going on about Taylor, Garbo, Hepburn - but as she says, those people haven't done anything since 1967. She is a fake, the kind of girl who would never have gotten on with Holden Caulfield of Catcher In The Rye fame, even if she is compared to him by one of the reviews quoted on the book's back cover - but viva likes fakes, because at least being fake takes some effort. However, as far as Viva is concerned it is really Ray who is the namedropper, always going on about Dillon from Skyline and how much more famous he is.

The novel takes place through Viva's exam period at school, at a time where Ray and Skyline have a kind of Blur versus Oasis rivalry - where D has the indie credibility and smart lyrics, and Skyline have the yob in the street, football terrace appeal. Against this background, viva skips one of her exams to travel to Edinburgh to see Ray play live, which is when she meets Drew, the support band, and her life is knocked for six.

To varying degrees Namedropper is about fame and how people react to it, but essentially it is a coming off age novel. In the midst of everything else this is a lighthearted, wittily written novel by a girl who was about the same age, with similar background to her character, learning life lessons about love, friendship and the ups and downs that go with that. As a novel it rambles, at times feels as though it is actually plotless, but Forrest's tone throughout is what keeps you reading, the clever one liners, the absurd little asides that transform the way that we look at things. So that Namedropper has far too many lines that are worth quoting to know where to start.