About the Book

It is 1981, a time when every teenager dreams of a garage band and the success that will come from strumming a guitar—success with girls, of course, because why else would anyone expose themselves to the sour moods of drowsy vacationers on a nudist beach, where one must constantly pretend to have one’s body under control? Meanwhile, mysterious coded messages keep arriving from home from an increasingly desperate sister, along with ever more passive-aggressive calls from an alleged (confirmed? self-proclaimed?) girlfriend who clearly suspects that the band’s femme fatale is not just a fashion accessory but plays a far more active role in the band’s offstage activities. Still, cash is cash.The first-person narrator of Lucija Stepančič steps into the lukewarm soapiness of pop music like into a swimming pool—ready for whatever invisible things may be floating in it. Even if something truly dark should be there—and it is. The greatest secrets are always revealed in reverse.