Synopses & Reviews
God Save My Queen: The Show Must Go On by Daniel Nester continues the theme from his first book--how his personality and aesthetic was shaped by Freddie Mercury and the British rock band Queen. World famous in the 1970s for such songs as "We Will Rock You," "We Are The Champions," "Another One Bites The Dust," and the mock-opera epic "Bohemian Rhapsody," the band ended its run in 1991 with the death of its flamboyant lead singer, Freddie Mercury, from AIDS. But it is a source of a deeper and more personal obsession for the author, poet and journalist Daniel Nester. As for the first volume, a short essay, or riff, accompanies, in order of album and track, of Queen's last five studio albums The "plot points" covered here would be the band's retreat from the United States -- timed almost exactly when the author proclaims Queen his "favorite band" -- as well as Queen's triumphant performance at Live Aid, European tours, and the band's retreat into secrecy as Freddie Mercury deals with HIV/AIDS, the decline of Mercury's health and his eventual death. Not quite memoir, neither prose poetry nor rock book, it will, it will nonetheless, rock you.
Review
"Ive never seen a text hold so many types of language some fragmented, some falling into humorous, tender narratives ... what this all amounts to is the creation of one of the more interesting personas Ive seen emerge in recent prose. Nesters voice creates the overly obsessed fan, bitter yet world-weary and still exuberant, someone awed with nostalgia, wondering how his icons have fallen into the bargain binhis lighter flicked stadium of icons, his falling decades of failure when ones Hero dies, and in order to keep going one has to cast myself as the Hero." American Book Review
Synopsis
A lyrical combination of memoir, poetry, trivia, and rock history provide the follow-up to Daniel Nester's first book on the British band Queen. Nester blends personal anecdotes with Queen's music to form the liner notes to his own psychosexual awakening, including an exquisite tribute to the unforgettable Mercury, who died of AIDS in 1991. Short essays or riffs are devoted to each Queen track on their last five studio albums, as well as a few solo and live efforts. The book is seven inches square, the same size as a vinyl 45-rpm record.