Rare Singles – Myers Benjamin (2024)

A warm, tender and funny story about unlikely friendships, second chances, and the magic of soul music - perfect for fans of Nick Hornby, David Nicholls and Jonathan Coe. Selected as a book of 2024 by the Guardian and New Statesman. Dinah has always lived in Scarborough. Trapped with her feckless husband and useless son, her one release comes at her town's Northern Soul nights, where she gets to put on her best and lose herself in the classics. Dinah has an especial hero: Bucky Bronco, who recorded a string of soul gems in the late Sixties and then vanished off the face of the earth. When she manages to contact Bucky she can't believe her luck. Over in Chicago, Bucky Bronco is down on his luck - and has been since the loss of his beloved wife Maybelle. The best he can hope for is to make ends meet, and try and stay high. But then an unexpected invitation arrives, from someone he's never met, to come to somewhere he's never heard of. With nothing to lose - and in need of the cash - Bucky boards a plane. And so Bucky finds himself in rainy Scarborough, where everyone seems to know who he is - preparing to play for an audience for the first time in nearly half a century.