GONEVILLE - Nick Bollinger - a memoir

 

Nick Bollinger is one of the most familiar voices in New Zealand music as host of RNZ programme The Sampler, music columnist for the Listener for nearly thirty years, and double bass player in many bands. But getting there was not easy. 

In Goneville Bollinger writes frankly about his unorthodox childhood, his early obsession with music, his parents’ problematic marriage, the untimely death of his father – left-wing radical Conrad Bollinger – and its profound effect on his family, and his two tumultuous teenage years on the road with Rough Justice and its charismatic and often outrageous leader Rick Bryant. It was the 1970s and pot was plentiful. Often, though, the band was short of other things – money, food, shelter, and petrol for its ramshackle bus. And in the country’s rapidly changing music scene, the post-war generation was clashing – sometimes violently – with the prevailing culture, in which real men played rugby, not rock. Bollinger vividly portrays a divided nation, about to shatter apart for a generation. 

Winner of the 2015 Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters; previous winners include Eleanor Catton, author of The Luminaries, and poet Hera Lindsay Bird. 

_____________________________________________________________________________ 

Goneville: A memoir by Nick Bollinger 

Te Awa Press

Release date: December 16, 2016 

Hardback - $39.00