Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series

  The Final Revival of Opal and Nev is a fictional oral history of the  interracial 1970s rock duo Opal Jewell and Nev Charles. The journalist S. Sunny Shelton  (nee SarahLena Curtis) is now editor of the music magazine Aural . Sunny proposes a book- length feature about Opal and Nev because there’s a rumor of an upcoming reunion tour.  Sunny has her own reasons for wanting to write this story. The book begins with her note: Disclosure: My father, a drummer named Jimmy Curtis, fell in love with Opal Jewell in the summer of 1970. For the duration of their affair, he was married to my mother, who in ’71 got pregnant with me. Before my birth…he was beaten to death by a racist gang during the riot at the Rivington Showcase. And before my mother could bury his broken body, his mistress blazed to stardom. In continuing the Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series, six of us met on Saturday Oct. 22 to discuss this incredible book. The way that the fictional duo fit into the actual cultur