The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

Structured as a fictional oral history, the novel unfolds through interviews, archival excerpts, and editorial commentary to tell the story of Opal Jewel and Nev Charles, a short-lived but influential rock duo from the early 1970s whose partnership is forged in creativity and destroyed by violence and betrayal.

The narrator and editor is S. Sunny Shelton, who in 2015 becomes the first Black woman to lead Aural, a prominent music magazine. Sunny reveals that her father, Jimmy Curtis, was a session drummer who had an affair with Opal and was killed during a 1971 concert riot when a mob hurled him into theater seats, breaking his neck. When Sunny encounters Opal at an industry event, Opal recognizes her instantly and proposes that Sunny write a book about the duo to coincide with a potential reunion tour. Opal also reveals she secretly funded Sunny's education for years through Sunny's mother, Corinne Curtis. Sunny agrees, planning a definitive account of the riot that killed her father.

Opal Robinson grows up poor on Detroit's East Side, raised by her single mother, Ruby Robinson, a cafeteria worker. At nine she develops alopecia areata, an autoimmune condition that causes hair loss, and endures relentless bullying. Her half-sister, Pearl Robinson, finds salvation in evangelical Christianity, while Opal discovers the power of style and performance. Summers with relatives in Birmingham, Alabama, expose both girls to Black middle-class dignity and Jim Crow's terrors. Nev Charles grows up lonely in Birmingham, England, the son of a chip-shop owner and a frustrated aspiring actress named Helen. Shy and imaginative, he channels isolation into songwriting. After Helen is killed in a traffic accident in 1968, Nev moves to New York to pursue music.

Nev is signed to Rivington Records, a scrappy label run by Howie Kelly. Producer Bob Hize recognizes Nev's talent but senses he needs a collaborator. At a Detroit nightclub in April 1970, Nev watches Opal perform backup for Pearl and is riveted by her improvised harmonies and charisma.

Opal arrives in New York and settles in Harlem, befriending Virgil LaFleur, a flamboyant aspiring actor and stylist of Haitian descent who becomes her closest confidant. Unable to read music, Opal panics before her first session, but Virgil arranges crash lessons and helps construct her transformative look: a multicolored caftan, dramatic makeup, and a freshly shaved head. During the recording of their debut album, Polychrome, Opal begins an affair with Jimmy Curtis, the married session drummer who anchors the record. Jimmy refuses to play "Black Coffee," a song Nev wrote about a struggling Black mother, calling it tone-deaf. Opal sides with Jimmy, and Nev storms off before returning to finish the album.

Polychrome, released in November 1970, fails commercially. Nev sinks into depression while Opal thrives in New York's art scene. Kelly signs the Bond Brothers, a Southern-rock band from Florida led by vocalist Chet Bond, whose members wear Confederate flag patches and cultivate ties with the Danger Fiends, a biker gang. Their single charts, giving Rivington its first hit. Opal lobbies against the Confederate imagery while Hize proposes the Rivington All-Star Showcase, a one-night concert with the Bonds headlining. Opal agrees on the condition that Jimmy plays drums. Meanwhile, Jimmy ends the affair because his wife is expecting a baby.

The showcase at the Smythe Theater on November 13, 1971, descends into catastrophe. The Bond Brothers arrive late and intoxicated, and twenty Danger Fiends bikers storm the front rows, heckling performers. Backstage, Chet waves his father's Confederate flag. When it slips to the floor, Nev grabs it and passes it to Opal, who pokes holes in it with a nail file. She and Virgil fold the flag around her hips under her tutu as a private joke. Kelly first tries to skip Opal and Nev's slot, then barks at Nev to go on as a stall tactic. Jimmy begs Opal not to perform, but she chooses the stage.

During the set, a voice hurls a racial slur. Opal recovers, turns her back to the audience, exposes the flag, tears it apart, and stomps on the pieces. Beau Bond, Chet's younger brother and the band's guitarist, rushes the stage. Jimmy leaps from behind his drum kit to tackle Beau, but the Bonds and Fiends swarm, dragging Jimmy off the stage and hurling him into the seats. His neck snaps against a wooden armrest, killing him at 32. Police arrive with tear gas, and Nev, despite broken ribs, carries Opal out on his back. Marion Jacobie, a press photographer covering the event, captures their escape in what becomes an iconic image.

New publicist Lizzie Harris engineers a comeback, booking the duo on The Dick Cavett Show to perform the incendiary "Who's the Nigger Now?" Their second album, Things We've Seen, charts on the Billboard 200. Opal uses her earnings to support her family and secretly fund Sunny's education. But the subsequent tour fractures the partnership: Nev's painkiller addiction spirals while Opal exhausts herself compensating onstage. By the end they are barely speaking. Opal escapes to Paris, experimenting with softer material, then returns to find Nev writing gentle piano songs incompatible with her vision. Rivington prioritizes his solo career. In a final confrontation, Nev accuses Opal of abandoning him first. She takes his hand, silently wishes him well, and lets go.

Nev achieves solo stardom while Opal's career falters. She fades from view for decades before resurfacing as a viral protest icon for a new generation. Sunny's reporting takes a devastating turn when she interviews Chet, who alleges that Nev deliberately told him backstage his flag was missing and blamed Jimmy as the thief, manufacturing a distraction to reclaim his performance slot. If true, Nev incited the violence that killed Sunny's father. At Opal's home in Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles, Sunny confronts Opal about the affair with Jimmy. Opal opens up, sharing the original photograph from the Polychrome sessions and recounting Jimmy's last words before the showcase: "You ain't nothing but a child."

At Bob Hize's memorial, Sunny reveals Chet's allegation to Opal, whose face registers uncertainty before hardening into anger. Lizzie Harris tries to have Sunny ejected, and Bob's daughter, Melody Hize Jorgensen, asks her to leave. A gossip column paints Sunny as unhinged, and she is pushed out of Aural. Her mother, Corinne, calls with unexpected support, revealing she accepted Opal's money for 20 years to give Sunny the best education possible. Sunny negotiates to retain the manuscript's rights.

The climax arrives at the Derringdo Festival. Opal rises through a trapdoor in a Virgil LaFleur costume and performs brilliantly with Nev. During "Who's the Nigger Now?," Opal spots security guards roughly dragging Jamilah Reid, a young Black fan, from the barricade. She signals Nev to stop. He shakes his head and keeps playing. Opal kisses him on the mouth as a goodbye, walks offstage, and tells reporters the reunion was "a mistake" and that Nev "should be ashamed for closing his eyes."

At a diner afterward, Opal apologizes to Sunny and offers her statement on Chet's allegation: "I don't know. But not knowing is scary enough for me." She pulls Jimmy's photograph from her pocket and gives it to Sunny. "It belongs with you," she says. They drive back to New York together, Opal dozing until "Everyday People" by Sly and the Family Stone comes on the radio and she wakes to dance in her seat.