The problem with reviewing things on a strictly amateur basis is that it’s often very hard to be impartial. The things that I review are chosen by me and as such, are more often than not, things that I’m attracted to in the first place. I’m a big fan of the music of Lush, so singer and guitarist Miki Berenyi’s autobiography Fingers Crossed was long-anticipated by me and was a book that I was always going to get something out of, even if it had been a bit rubbish. Fortunately, it’s far from being rubbish and all of the professional critics (you know, the ones who get paid for doing this kind of thing and therefore don’t have the luxury of partiality) agree. Thanks Miki, for making my job a lot easier by not being a bit rubbish.

I was quite late to the party with Lush; so late, in fact, that the party was over and all that remained were half-empty wine bottles and cheesy nibbles ground into the carpet. After a difficult time in my life in the early 1990s, my musical tastes blossomed exponentially and Lush was one of the bands that really appealed to me. I discovered them in a typically eclectic manner; I was at a Sparks gig in London and the support was a band I’d never heard of called Sing-Sing. I enjoyed their set, so I used ye olde coal-fired Internet to look into them, finding out that Sing-Sing were formed by Emma Anderson, formerly of Lush. I bought a CD of Lush’s greatest hits album Ciao, loved it, devoured their back catalogue and the rest is history.

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. Information was sparse, but it was clear that she had not had a good time in the closing days of Lush, eventually leaving the music business altogether and getting a ‘proper job’. In a way, I admired her, because so many musicians plug away at the music business even after it has become intolerable and the results can be tragic. I was glad that Miki survived Lush, but I was acutely aware that I didn’t know anything near the whole story. Fingers Crossed changes all that.

If you’re expecting Fingers Crossed to be a rollercoaster ride of rock ‘n’ roll excess, you might be disappointed, but that’s more about your inflexibility than any failing the part of the author. Sure, there is an unflinching examination of the excess that came with music industry success in the 1990s in there, but that’s restricted to the latter half of the book. The first half – and in many ways the much more interesting half – is a frank depiction of young Miki’s upbringing; the daughter of a Japanese model-turned-actress and a Hungarian businessman, who split when she was quite young, causing Miki to be passed around from one household to another and all over the world. Miki’s mother, in case you weren’t already aware, is Yasuko Nagazumi, who appeared in the Bond movie You Only Live Twice (with Miki in utero) and the second series of Space: 1999, among others.

You might naively assume that having a parent in the entertainment industry comes with a degree of financial security, but the author makes it clear that this is far from being the case. Young Miki’s childhood haunts seem to sway alarmingly from the lavish to the impoverished and she gives a very stark impression of how unreliable a career show business can be for a parent. She’s also entirely unflinching in her stories of sexual abuse that she suffered as a child, both at the hands of her father’s friends and her paternal grandmother. Miki does not sensationalise these elements in the way that some authors might – this is by no means a ‘look at my dreadful childhood’ autobiography – and she takes great care to not pinpoint these occurrences as an excuse for anything she may or may not have done in her later life.

It’s difficult to not see Miki’s Hungarian grandmother Nora as the monster in this story. To the reader, this flinty, tight-fisted, Nazi-sympathising old woman comes across as a Grand Grotesque, yet she’s present throughout Miki’s childhood and almost a stabilising factor at times. The author paints her in shades of grey, describing how her old-world sensibilities seem completely incompatible with England in the 1970s and 80s. But her exploitation of her young granddaughter, which the author only realises to be sexual in nature much later in life, is inexcusable and it makes for a decidedly unsettling read. It’s impossible for us, on the outside, to understand the feelings that Miki must have about Nora when looking back for this memoir, but she does a very good job of letting us feel just a little bit of what she feels.

One of the most artful elements of Fingers Crossed is how Miki describes that childhood dichotomy of totally loving your parents even when their behaviour isn’t quite up to scratch. She clearly adored her father Ivan Berenyi, even though he comes across as shiftless, unreliable and a consummate womaniser. Her times with her father (including a terrifying hand-to-mouth car journey across Hungary with Nora on board) are told with such love that it’s clear Miki loved her father so much that she would forgive him almost anything. 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).

Eventually, the topic of bands raises its crimson-dyed head and we are introduced to Emma Anderson, Steve Rippon and Chris Acland who, along with Miki, make up Lush. They were far from an overnight success and once again the author gives the reader, who may have a rose-tinted view of how things work in showbiz, a blunt depiction of the hard edges of the music industry. Because Miki was, for a long time, removed from the industry, she feels quite happy to portray it warts-and-all and the results are so much more satisfying than some glittered-up puff-piece about how great it is to be a pop star. The misogyny of the music industry in the 90s is first in line for a well-deserved kicking and Miki rarely holds back from naming names when the behaviour of some preening cock of Britpop was particularly inappropriate.

Miki’s relationships with the other members of Lush are examined without censorship. Steve Rippon left fairly early on, replaced on bass by Phil King, who seems to have always been something of an outsider in the band. Miki’s intimate relationship with drummer Chris Acland, his depression and his ultimate tragic fate are some of the more well-recorded aspects of Lush’s history, but for the first time, the author gives an insider’s view of what went on. She tries very hard not to paint Chris as a ‘tragedy waiting to happen’ and concentrates on the talent, kindness and sense of humour of this very complicated man. When the inevitable comes to be described, it’s not over-dramatised, but presented with the kind of numb disbelief that is the common factor of all bereavements.

The relationship between Miki and Emma Anderson is at the very heart of Lush. What comes across is that, for all their strong but very complex friendship, they’re two very different characters from very different backgrounds. Miki talks about Emma with incredible fondness and is never less than complimentary about her musicianship and song writing skills, but she doesn’t hold back from letting us know the things that bug her about her former band mate and the ways in which these contribute to the eventual dissolution of Lush. There’s never any explosive split that drives Lush apart; simply people drifting away from one another, as is frequently the case in all working and interpersonal relationships.

Lush reformed briefly in 2015 with Miki, Emma and Phil King and this is also covered in the book. Then in 2018, Miki formed Piroshka with her partner K.J. ‘Moose’ McKillop , Justin Welch and Michael Conroy (the latter two of whom both played with Lush during the reunion) and have continued making new music since then. Most recently, Miki has been touring extensively in promotion of this book, doing Q&A sessions at small venues around the country and occasionally including a little musical set with ‘The Miki Berenyi Trio’. The success of this book has thrust Miki back into the public eye – arguably more so than during her time with Lush – so it’s great to know that she’s doing so well these days

Musicians who write autobiographies often look back on their most commercially successful phase with mixed feelings and this is no exception. Miki doesn’t trash Lush; she looks back on it with with happiness and pride, but is keen to point out that it wasn’t always the glorious experience that some might think it was. It’s not that she’s being cold or emotionless; she just wants to tell people the facts about what happened in Lush… and every other element of her life. There is no ambiguity in Fingers Crossed and you won’t come away from it feeling like you know Miki Berenyi no better than when you started. 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.

Oh yeah, the Talking Book! 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. There’s an amazing authenticity to having the story told by the author and certain of the phraseology sounds so right in Miki’s voice and accent. Particularly the swearing. Can I say that? A ‘C’ word that sounds offensive in my male inner monologue sounds less so delivered in context by Miki. I know, it’s weird, but that’s how it feels to me. There are also two little bonus features on the end of the talking book; firstly, an interview between Miki and Mark Gardener of Ride, which is fun and nostalgic, and secondly an original song by Piroshka called Fingers Crossed. The song has a very early Lush feel to it and is the perfect accompaniment to the book.

I can’t recommend Fingers Crossed highly enough, even if you’ve never heard of Miki Berenyi and have no interest in Lush. It’s extremely well written, funny, moving and informative and Miki’s years outside the music biz as a literary editor have given her a strong understanding of what does and doesn’t work on the printed page. As I said earlier, I was gonna like this book even if it had been half as good, I’m a fan, but to earn the praise of all those newspaper columnists and book reviewers (not to mention the notoriously hard-to-please music press) took hard work and dedication. Fingers Crossed is easily my favourite book of 2022 and my favourite autobiography since Bruce Campbell’s If Chins Could Kill (a very different book). I’ve no idea if Miki Berenyi has any interest in writing another book – perhaps a novel – but if she did, on the basis of Fingers Crossed, I’d certainly read it!

‘Fingers Crossed’ by Miki Berenyi (2022) is published in the UK by Nine Eight Books. The audio book, read by the author, is available from Audible.