Another Planet: A Teenager in Suburbia

Another Planet: A Teenager in Suburbia

by TraceyThorn (Author)

Synopsis

In a 1970s commuter town, Tracey Thorn's teenage life was forged from what failed to happen. Her diaries were packed with entries about not buying things, not going to the disco, the school coach not arriving. Before she was a bestselling musician and writer, Tracey Thorn was a typical teenager: bored and cynical, despairing of her aspirational parents. Her only comfort came from house parties, Meaningful Conversations and the female pop icons who hinted at a new kind of living. Returning more than three decades later to Brookmans Park, scene of her childhood, Thorn takes us beyond the bus shelters and pub car parks, the utopian cul-de-sacs, the train to Potters Bar and the weekly discos, to the parents who wanted so much for their children, the children who wanted none of it. With her trademark wit and insight, Thorn reconsiders the Green Belt post-war dream so many artists have mocked, and so many artists have come from.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 224
Edition: Main
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 07 Feb 2019

ISBN 10: 1786892553
ISBN 13: 9781786892553

Media Reviews
Another Planet is about being a teenager in suburbia in the 1970s, and revisiting one's own youth from middle age. It touches on class, culture, music, plum jam and parenting teens. It's wonderful. You'll read it in one go -- NINA STIBBE
I loved it. Thorn is the rarest of things: a singer whose phrasing is as good on the page as it is through a microphone -- JOHN NIVEN
Utter genius . . . It's wise and funny and moving and smart, but more than all of those things, the writing is just BREATHTAKING . . . I am blown away -- JOANNA CANNON
I adored this. Wise, tender, beautifully observed, deadly funny. A Green Belt memoir classic -- MAX PORTER
The planet in question is one that so many of us were beamed down from but, oddly, it remains a rarely described place - Tracey Thorn redresses that here in a memoir that is written with great humour and skill, and with a poignancy that deepens as the pages turn -- KEVIN BARRY
I devoured Another Planet. Thorn's intimate reflections on teenage angst, motherhood, panic attacks, family and music are so moving and insightful, and written with wit and sensitivity -- COSEY FANNI TUTTI
Another Planet is a poignant, rueful, tender portrait of a world so little written about, but which so many of us will recognise. I devoured it. Thorn is a brilliant writer, and a brilliantly insightful chronicler of a certain type of English experience -- MELISSA HARRISON
Tracey Thorn turns the tables on her teenage boredom and chips a jewel out of doing stuff - and not doing stuff -in suburbia. A meditation on mooching and moping, escaping and finding, mums and dads, love and ageing, which is reflective, warm and deeply touching -- KEGGIE CAREW
PRAISE FOR TRACEY THORN: Beautifully written, dryly funny and searingly honest * * Sunday Times * *
The Alan Bennett of pop memoirists. I loved her book so much I wanted to form a band, too. Preferably with Thorn -- CAITLIN MORAN
Author Bio
Tracey Thorn is a singer-songwriter and writer, best known for her seventeen years in bestselling duo Everything But The Girl. She grew up as the youngest of three children in Brookmans Park, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, where she learned the piano, enjoyed underaged drinking, and started her first band while still at school. Since then, she has released four solo albums, one movie soundtrack, a large handful of singles and two books, including the Sunday Times bestselling memoir, Bedsit Disco Queen, and currently writes a column for the New Statesman. She lives in London, with her husband Ben Watt and their three children. @tracey_thorn | traceythorn.com