Neverland

Vanessa Kisuule is a big Michael Jackson fan. This fixation once gave her great joy, but now it keeps her up at night. In her bracingly honest, energetic and lively book, she explores the fall-out from that fandom and how, or if, we can hold people to account whilst loving them at the same time.

Why do famous musicians mean so much to us? How does the pop culture machine both mirror and magnify the worst aspects of human nature? Why is it so hard to accept that the people we love, famous or not, are capable of doing terrible things?

As debates rage on about abusive public figures, Kisuule asks not just if we should separate the art from the artist, but how this moral conundrum informs the way we shape our relationships, families and notions of social justice. Witty, poetic and with references to R. Kelly, Britney Spears and a host of other famous faces, Neverland is both an ardent love letter to the music we love and an unflinching look at the costs of hero worship.