Marc Bolan Killed in Crash: A musical novel of the 1970s

by Ira A. Robbins

London, 1972: An ordinary schoolgirl is pulled into the world of a fading rock star and becomes the secret weapon in a plan to revive his career in the time of glam. The mysteries of sex and songwriting, connivance, fame, family and the music business collide to bring her to a life she has never imagined. With a detailed and knowing historical background, Marc Bolan Killed in Crash is a musical romp through an all-but-forgotten pop era.

449 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 31, 2020

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book about Marc Bolan of T Rex, for the record. In fact, T Rex appears only briefly, so the title's something of a red herring, except as a cautionary tale of rock excess and failed ambitions. This is basically an intensely English book by a New York author, Ira Robbins, editor of Trouser Press, which was "America's Only British Rock Magazine" in the 1970s and 1980s. In a host of British dialects and highly specific scene setting, Robbins puts a self-aware but initially naive young protagonist in the midst of the British pop music industry. Almost by accident, she becomes first a songwriter for a fading 60s pop star, and then a performer in a hype-driven youth pop music industry under the guidance of a savvy producer. The book is better and more persuasive in the first sections with young Laila being dragged into the mechanics of pop music writing and production; the pacing seems a bit off and awkwardly fast when she lurches into pop stardom as a manufactured creation of an aggressive and ambitious manager/producer. Her narrative voice - the portions in the first person - is stronger when it's still a bit tentative, in awe or in skepticism of the machinery around her; as she is older the voice is a bit darker and jaded. In many respects, I think the story told here is a story that took place more in the punk and new wave era than it did in the awkward early-70s era between Swinging London and the later explosion of punk. In the midst of leaden masculine classic rock and aging hippies, the idea of a young naïf becoming a pop star was perhaps more transgressive than it later became. Of course, as a lifelong rock journalist Robbins knows each of these stories intimately.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trouser Press was an absolute godsend to me when I discovered it back in 1979, the only rock magazine of its time that spent as much time hipping me to the past as the present or what we all perceived as the future. Robbins was the man responsible for that zine, so when I found out he'd written a novel set in the glam rock world which inspired him so much to later inspire me, I was ready to read it right away.
It's 1972 in London, and a young girl named Laila (most definitely not pronounced the way Eric Clapton sang "Layla") is introduced to the music business through an accidental find on a bus (or was it the tube? - that detail is buried somewhere early in the book I just finished). With a combination of true discovery of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll and an unabashed cynical delight in the manipulation of same by business types, Robbins puts us in this world with lots of period details and trainspotting drops of music. (Keith Moon even makes a brief and amusing cameo and the description of a Roxy Music concert that is Laila's first exposure to live rock is exquisite).
The first 3/4 of the novel is an origin story of sorts, and the story is much more entertaining and complex. The last quarter jumps across 15 or 20 years in the main character's life, and while the story remains fascinating, it could have been fleshed out further. But that's a small complaint considering the many insights into the differences between rock's promises and its demands upon its practitioners.