In a 1970s commuter town, Tracey Thorn’s teenage life was forged from what failed to happen. Her diaries were packed with entries about not buying things, not going to the disco, the school coach not arriving.

Before she became an acclaimed musician and writer, Tracey Thorn was a typical teenager: bored and cynical, despairing of her aspirational parents. Her only comfort came from house parties, Meaningful Conversations and the female pop icons who hinted at a new kind of living.

Returning more than three decades later to Brookmans Park, scene of her childhood, Thorn takes us beyond the bus shelters and pub car parks, the utopian cul-de-sacs, the train to Potters Bar and the weekly discos, to the parents who wanted so much for their children, the children who wanted none of it. With endearing wit and great insight, Thorn reconsiders the Green Belt post-war dream so many artists have mocked, and yet so many artists have come from.

Review

"I adored this. Wise, tender, beautifully observed, deadly funny. A Green Belt memoir classic" (MAX PORTER)

"What a wise and funny book. Nostalgic but unsentimental, Thorn beautifully captures the aspirations, ennui and angst of suburban teenage life. I loved it" (DAVID NICHOLLS)

"Another Planet is about being a teenager in suburbia in the 1970s, and revisiting one's own youth from middle age. It touches on class, culture, music, plum jam and parenting teens. It's wonderful. You'll read it in one go" (NINA STIBBE)

"A book that dazzles with a quiet rebellion, resilience and hope" (ELIF SHAFAK)

"I loved it. Thorn is the rarest of things: a singer whose phrasing is as good on the page as it is through a microphone" (JOHN NIVEN)

"I devoured Another Planet. Thorn's intimate reflections on teenage angst, motherhood, panic attacks, family and music are so moving and insightful, and written with wit and sensitivity" (COSEY FANNI TUTTI)

"The planet in question is one that so many of us were beamed down from but, oddly, it remains a rarely described place - Tracey Thorn redresses that here in a memoir that is written with great humour and skill, and with a poignancy that deepens as the pages turn" (KEVIN BARRY)

"Utter genius . . . It's wise and funny and moving and smart, but more than all of those things, the writing is just BREATHTAKING . . . I am blown away" (JOANNA CANNON)

"Another Planet made me yearn for a suburban childhood and a night out dancing with Tracey Teen . . . Reveals the duality and danger that lies not too far beneath the surface of this seemingly safe suburb. Tender, funny and unexpectedly dark" (DAMIAN BARR)

"Another Planet is a poignant, rueful, tender portrait of a world so little written about, but which so many of us will recognise. I devoured it. Thorn is a brilliant writer, and a brilliantly insightful chronicler of a certain type of English experience" (MELISSA HARRISON)

Book Description

An exploration of suburbia from music icon Tracey Thorn; singer-songwriter and Sunday Times bestselling author of *Bedsit Disco Queen*

Another Planet: A Teenager in Suburbia

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