Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me from Success: Rough Trade Book of the Year

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By the end of excessive touring at Lollapalooza in 1992, the band had been weary and in dire need of a mental recharge.

Rarely have the seeds of abuse or abandonment and their effects been better followed through a life or better expressed. Thankfully there is a happy ending where Berenyi has grown up and maybe even escaped or come to terms with the shitstorm that her life threw at her. Despite the trauma at the heart of her story, Berenyi’s writing is characterised by arch humour and a delight in the absurd. They made music that ranged from ethereal 4AD fare to indie pop belters, but never seemed part of a scene as such, both their music and the people who made it not being so self-limiting. While the description of insulting sexual behaviour, aggressive mansplaining and the careless attitude of the band’s managers sound unnerving, all music industry bollocks pales in comparison to real losses.Fingers Crossed is her candid, often brutally hilarious memoir of the mid-level rock hustle in the shoegaze and Britpop scenes. But although I obliquely discovered Lush via Emma Anderson, it was crimson-haired lead singer Miki Berenyi who always fascinated me and the more I looked into her on the aforementioned primitive Internet, the more intriguing she became. Her relationship with her mother is more complex, but I suppose that’s common for mother/daughter relationships and, in this case, it seems to have a lot more to do with Yasuko’s choice of partners (including stuntman-turned-director Ray Austin, which I had no idea about until this point). The Britpop years, and the lad culture that grew around it, are brilliantly eviscerated in a five-page rant in which Liam Gallagher and former Loaded editor James Brown, among others, don’t exactly emerge covered in glory. If you’d like to hear Miki’s story related in her own dulcet tones, there’s a talking book version of Fingers Crossed available via Audible.

Mostly, though, the two come across as the pioneers of memory: sisters-in-arms partaking of the fun on offer – Lollapalooza was bonkers – but refusing, as best they could, to do degrading photoshoots, fighting for their artistic vision in the face of music biz pressure. Miki also explores her complicated relationship with Emma - one that has fluctuated between camaraderie and rivalry over the years - and addresses the devastating tragedy that led to the band's split. She’s figuratively baring all in this book and it must be a cathartic experience to know that once it’s done, it will never have to be done again… apart from the Talking Book. The extraordinary and searingly honest personal story of musician Miki Berenyi, revealing the highs and lows of navigating the madness of the '90s music industry. This could be indulgent - rock bios are generally aimed at people who want to learn more about the inside story of who hated who in the band, not necessarily where they went to infant school - but Berenyi is astute enough to realise that much of her personality, personal history, songwriting acumen and the need for a found family of friends and bandmates is informed by her rather unusual upbringing.On a drive across Europe to Hungary, he sets the young Miki selling bathroom equipment on the streets of Prague to keep the cash flowing.