Three Minutes on Love
Three Minutes on Love
Permanent Press, 2008
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Rosie Kettle, quick and intuitive, leaves her small town in the California desert to attend art college in San Francisco in the late 60’s, where she discovers a passion for photography and music. Through a chance meeting with a flamboyant Hungarian illegal immigrant who runs a local music newspaper, Rosie is offered her first job photographing a down-and out blues musician where she meets David Wilderspin, a young guitar sideman in the bluesman’s band. Although he is only 19, David is already a survivor: the estranged son of a violent, Russian choreographer, whose conflicted feelings for his father he must come to terms with.
Only days after they meet, the bluesman hangs himself. This self-destructive act changes their lives forever. David, obsessed with music and determined to be successful, quickly turns to rock and roll. For Rosie, the picture she took that night jack-knifes her into a new career as one of the first women rock photographers in a male-dominated profession. It also introduces her to the chaotic, seductive life of the music industry.
Three Minutes on Love is a novel about artistic will and human redemption, set within the southern California music business of the late 20th Century, where men in suits happily aided young, talented musicians to self-destruct. Rosie’s first-person narrative is a rare love story played out on a stage of celebrity and power, as David and Rosie fight their way through the destructive excess of the burgeoning rock music world, and eventually, through one of the greatest tragedies imaginable.
“…wonderful debut…powerful romance about the intersection of love, art and independence…”
“Roccie Hill’s Three Minutes on Love is a sweet riff on the kind of passion that makes human beings ‘believe in evolution, that we could be smarter than our parents.’ But it’s also a poignant poem about the refusal of hope to extinguish in the light of the morning after…”
“Roccie Hill is a master writer. From lyrics for rock bands in the seventies to short stories in literary quarterlies, she has practiced her craft, developing an amazing talent in the art of storytelling.”
“…a wonderful flashback to the Flower Power and rock ‘n roll images of the San Francisco music scene in the 60′s–a time when many up and coming photographers became an integral part of the families of these rock performers: getting stoned with them, partying with them, traveling on the tour bus with them, and being allowed to do the most intimate portraits. This is something that could never happen now, as record companies and PR agents would never allow such access to performers–which is sad. I was there in the Sixties, onstage, photographing Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds, Lovin’ Spoonful, and Jim Morrison and The Doors. And what a wonderful time it was… Three Minutes On Love brings back the nostalgia and magic of that time.”
“…the tale of Rosie Kettle, a California wild child of the late Sixties, carving out her niche as a photographer of rock stars. Rosie’s distinct, captivating voice and pioneer-feminist personality drive the narrative of this book….an impressively controlled and literary style that carries an unexpectedly potent erotic charge.”