I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch: A fantastic tale of boys, booze and how Wham! were sold to China

Description

The acclaimed author of Black Vinyl White Powder and You Don't Have To Say You Love Me takes us on a Far Eastern pop adventure as he tries to take Wham! behind the bamboo curtain Pop manager extraordinaire Simon Napier-Bell had had enough. He'd had enough of pop groups. He'd had enough of the constant grief at home with his two ex-boyfriends bickering and bleeding him dry; and most of all he'd had enough of the music biz. But then he fell in love with a new passion - the Far East; and a dynamic new duo - George and Andrew - jointly called Wham! Soon, in an audacious attempt to have the best of both worlds, he found himself offering to arrange for Wham! to be the first ever Western pop group to play in communist China - a masterstroke of PR which, in one swift stroke, would make them one of the biggest groups in the world. What follows is an exciting, unpredictable and hilarious romp around the more curious corners of the world as Napier-Bell dives into the unknown, attempting to achieve the unachievable. We soon find ourselves in the company of a wonderful cast of petulant pop stars, shady international 'businessmen', and a hilarious confusion of spies, students and institutionalised officials and ministers as he edges ever closer to inadvertently becoming one of the first Westerners to break down the walls of communist China.

In the 1960s Simon Napier-Bell managed the Yardbirds and co-wrote Dusty Springfield's huge hit 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me' (also the title of his first book - 'The classic hidden history of Sixties pop' Jon Savage). He subsequently managed Marc Bolan, Japan, and Wham! as well as many other laughably less successful groups. www.simonnapierbell.com

"Tells the story with a raconteur's relish and a cast of shady characters straight out of a Graham Greene novel" Q magazine "A riot of boys, booze and 80s excess...a great raconteur and his snide asides are a joy...Bitchier than an Elton John put down" Elle "Reading this is like sitting across a table groaning with foie gras, listening to a raconteur extraordinaire ramble through an alcoholic mist...tremendous fun" Gay Times "Funny and totally absorbing" Pink Paper "Richly funny and entertaining..some of it reads like a big, gay Bond thriller; other bits are pure, pungent travelogue" Mojo