Melbourne-based comedian and writer Justine Sless is launching her new novel, Before I Sing You This Song in the UK on 3rd October, followed by a Melbourne launch on 9th November. Before I Sing You This Song is set in Sunderland in 1978, where the rules were that women could sing, but they couldn’t tell jokes, and women could go to Working Men’s Clubs but not be members.
The novel is inspired by Sunderland comedian Bobby Thompson, who did the same two acts for nearly thirty years. A phenomenal feat. His material was about poverty, “his missus” and being in debt.
At the heart of Before I Sing You This Song is Elsie Bishop, a Hendon-born woman whose diaries and newspaper cuttings form the backbone of the narrative. Elsie is an ordinary woman with an extraordinary ambition: to perform stand-up comedy. Before I Sing You This Song examines class, gender and misogyny. The novel is meticulously researched and written in authentic pitmatic dialect.
Before I Sing You This Song has taken ten years to reach publication and has been brought to life by the small but mighty team at Crear Publishing, an independent press based in County Durham, UK. The cover (pictured above) is the work of local artist and author Fe Duncan, lead singer of Slalom D, and features Bobby Thompson’s famous gansey jumper.
Jen Bowden, host of Northern Voices Podcast said: “Wit and humour pulls us deep into the vibrant heart of working-class Northern life“.
Before I Sing You This Song is Justine Sless’s third book. For the last twenty years she has been doing a lot of comedy: she performs it, teaches it and produces it. She has a masters by research in creative writing on humour as a power construct and the link with gender-based violence.
She wrote Before I Sing You This Song initially to understand why people laughed at Bobby’s jokes for 30 years, but ended up wondering where all the funny women in 1978 were.
Justine left Sunderland three decades ago and is now based in Melbourne, Australia. Before I Sing You This Song is proof that you can take the girl out of Sunderland, but you can’t take Sunderland out of the girl.
And just so you know, women were only allowed to be members of Working Men’s Clubs in 2007, and in 2023 the organisation officially updated its name from the Working Men’s Club & Institute Union to the Club & Institute Union.
Before I Sing You This Song is dedicated to all the women whose lives have been swept away under the rug.
Justine Sless will be headlining at the North East Indie Book Festival on 3rd October in Durham. Tickets and more information can be found here!
