Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

women) well into his old age. Like David Bowie, the
writer didn’t come from money. His mother and
father operated a china shop. Herbert lived in the
basement. He lost himself in books and the stars
(gazing through a borrowed telescope at the country
estate where his mother became a caretaker). Like
Bowie, Wells used his discipline and intelligence to
lift himself above his working-class station. Like
Bowie, he showed discipline and aptitude early; he
wrote his first novel, The Desert Daisy, at age ten
(Bowie was taking lessons with acclaimed jazz
saxophonist Ronnie Ross at twelve). Most important,
like Bowie, Wells had one aim over all: to eventually
find a way out of here.
“It wasn’t a place of much distinction,” Hanif
Kureishi, author of the Bromley-set novel The
Buddha of Suburbia and another famous son, told
me in his clipped, vaguely tough (for a novelist
anyway) accent. “And H. G. Wells was a big source
of pride. He was a very hip writer.” To be middleclass
in England, I’m also told, is akin to being, say,
upper-working-class in America. It essentially means
that there is enough money for food and bills but few
amenities or luxuries. It means that you can own a
small house, as opposed to a tiny flat. Your family
might also boast a small tree in the yard, enabling
those inside to look out your window and see
something green, and ostensibly preventing
neighbors from peering in completely.
In the fifties, Brixton became a place where many