Benjamin Myers’ last novel ‘Cuddy’ was a bold, mystical, millennium-hopping story about St. Cuthbert and the north – its people and its landscape – which cast one eye towards the heavens. ‘Rare Singles’ is an altogether more straightforward tale, but this time round our protagonist, Bucky Bronco, has one eye cast downwards. He’s in hell. A seventy-something man, he lives on his own in Chicago. His beloved wife died a year earlier. Bucky is burdened by all manner of ailments and he only manages to gain a “golden hour” of relief by popping opioids, to which he’s become addicted. Unbeknownst to Bucky, however, is the fact that he has a loyal following of fans in England. This is purely down to the couple of soul singles he cut in 1968. The singles didn’t trouble the charts but they found favour with the Northern Soul scene in the UK. When Bucky receives an email from soul fan Dinah, asking if he’ll perform at a Weekender in Scarborough, Bucky agrees. Dinah – who has problems of her own thanks to a feckless husband and son – meets Bucky at the airport and puts him up at a grand hotel that has seen better days. Matters are complicated when Bucky finds he’s lost his pills. In lesser hands, it’s a set up that could’ve been pure cornball, but Myers ekes out real poetry here (Bucky’s encounters with Scarborough’s sundry seagulls are worthy of Poe), and any reawakening arcs he chooses to dish out feel well earned. ‘Rare Singles’ pulses, not with the pounding beats of Northern Soul, but with the shifting rhythms of lives lived, moving from stasis to flux. RM

Published by Bloomsbury Circus