The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

Walton's debut is built as an oral history: interviews, articles, and editor's notes assembled by music journalist S. Sunny Shelton about Opal and Nev, the interracial rock duo — she a flamboyant Detroit singer, he a British songwriter — whose 1970s rise ended at a label showcase where a rival band waved a Confederate flag, Opal protested from the stage, and the ensuing violence killed their drummer, Jimmy Curtis. Decades later, reunion rumors give Sunny her assignment — and Jimmy Curtis was her father. The novel won the Aspen Words Literary Prize and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.

Author: Dawnie Walton · Original publisher: 37 INK (New York), 2021