Review: This Is (Not About) David Bowie by Freya Morris

I'm thrilled to bits to be stop number three on Freya Morris's blog tour for the launch of This Is (Not About) David Bowie. 

"Every day we dress up in other people's expectations.

We button on opinions of who we should be, we instagram impossible ideals, tweet to follow, and comment to judge.

But what if we could just let it all go? What if we took off our capes and halos, threw away our uniforms, let go of the future. What if we became who we were always supposed to be?

Human.

This is (not about) David Bowie. It's about you.

This Is (Not About) David Bowie is the debut flash fiction collection from F.J. Morris. Surreal, strange and beautiful it shines a light on the modern day from the view of the outsider.

From lost souls, to missing sisters, and dying lovers to superheroes, it shows what it really is to be human in a world that’s always expecting you to be something else."

MY REVIEW

I read This Is (Not About) David Bowie from start to finish in one sitting, and then promptly read it again the next day! 

Freya Morris has a unique voice that is strong and daring. This collection of stories, poetry and miniature dramas is bright with brilliance - exciting, poignant, surreal, simultaneously other-worldly and utterly grounded. You find yourself instantly immersed in the crazy, startling, off-centre, sci-fi-esque world of Morris's outsiders and lost souls; characters who, like Bowie himself, are striving to find their identity, and often trying to be superhuman. And although you can feel his presence in every corner, as Morris says, this collection is more about us than it will ever be about David Bowie.

Her words are the sweet and sour fizz of a bag of Haribo Tangfastics that you can't stop eating, the crackle and bang of fireworks going off in your head, and after you've taken them all in so fast, you have to pause, reflect, go back and read them again.

Each story holds a new surprise, and it's hard to pick favourites, but here are some of the lines that stayed with me:

"What’s the point of dancing in the rain if you can’t feel it?" says Tom to Hannah in Dancing in the Street.

Freya Morris

“There is a painting in my father’s house that we would step into. The painting became our window when we were too afraid to look out of ours.”  The Last Thing my Father Sang to me.

“You gave me permission to be that girl in my Dad’s old suits. No, it was way more than that – you made it feel extraordinary. Better than the rest. No norms. No lines.” Lifeline - an Eulogy.

This Is (Not About) David Bowie is published by Retreat West Books, and is out now.

Get your copy here