Big, bold lettering on the cover of Drew Gummerson’s novel announces that Me and Mickie James is about Down By Law, “a pop duo like no other”. Different fonts, formatting and crude illustrations plastered over the front and back of the book go on to introduce the reader to the basic story – Mickie James has a hunchback, they live in a room at the top of St. Pancras Station and their plan to make it big takes them on a journey through European theme parks, Iraq and the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City. Yes, all this information is provided in the cover art, and it is a nice touch considering that Me and Mickie James is very much about the visuals Gummerson can create with words.

For a book about sound and music, Me and Mickie James evokes rich, surreal visuals where it seems that nothing is still and everything is alive with colour – strong images include pink hats, blue hair, enormous breasted women, the sight of Mickie James’s hunchback in the falling snow, whooshing roller coasters, vast bleached-white land, sparkling jewellery and a black sea. Images such as a ruby flying up into the air and coming down “in an arc against a background of stars, red against the black, black behind the red”, emphasise the novel’s association with visual forms of art. This is a book that engages the reader through sight, sound and thought, making it a gorgeous and compelling read.

Gummerson’s vivid writing style serves the book well when it comes to one of its major themes. Me and Mickie James concerns itself with the notion of aesthetic and artifice in our media-saturated culture – in short, the glossy surface of manufactured pop: “It’s all about surface these days”, observes Mickie James. “What chance have we got when I look the way I do?” From their encounter with a magician, to the set of the porn film the narrator stars in – in which the room is set up to look like a train carriage – nothing is how it appears on the surface. The book then goes on to champion the hope that, beyond the smoke-and-mirrors, there is still something very real and very powerful about music.

Despite Mickie James’s doubts and the rocky road the pair travel in their quest for superstardom, their music has the fantastic ability to traverse and transcend cultures, politics, sexual orientation, physical appearance and age. Iraqi children hand-jiving to one of Down by Law’s flamenco-inspired tracks is particularly poignant and imaginative. It is also worth noting the fact that the pair's sexuality is never an issue to their audiences or friends.

However, their relationship is nevertheless an important part of Me and Mickie James. While the momentous visuals give the impression that nothing stands still – they live above St. Pancras Station, after all, which is by definition a place of transit – what is unwavering is the devotion between the two men, and their music is the cohesive ingredient: “I believed that Mickie James and me loved each other. Somehow we belonged together and that made our music special”.

Such a sentiment reminded of the classic Beatles track with the universal message, ‘All You Need is Love’. Indeed, references to the Fab Four are peppered throughout the book, including the duo’s Iraqi guide Ishtar telling them, “I think you are better than the Beatles”.

At the beating heart of the book, then, is the question of what really makes the world go round: music, love, a love of music and music about love. Much like the ruby that sparkles against the night sky so vividly, Gummerson has written a gem of a novel.

Read our interview with Drew Gummerson and our feature with the author, My Life in Gay Music!

Me and Mickie James, by Drew Gummerson
Publisher: Jonathan Cape, Random House Group
Released: 17 July 2008
ISBN: 0224082442

Buy Me and Mickie James online now and save some money to put towards Drew Gummerson's first novel, The Lodger.