Miki Berenyi – Fingers Crossed (paperback book)

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Formed in 1988, Lush emerged from the London gig circuit at one of the most fertile moments in UK music. In “Fingers Crossed”, the band’s co-founder and frontwoman Miki Berenyi delivers the definitive account of that era and of her own remarkable, often turbulent life.

Born into a world split between her father’s bohemian circles and her mother’s glamorous acting career, Berenyi grew up amid constant travel, celebrity acquaintances, and chaotic schooling. Beneath the surface, however, lay instability: parental neglect, emotional isolation, and the pervasive threat of an abusive grandmother. These early fractures shaped a crippling shyness and left her vulnerable long before she found her way to music.

Music became the lifeline — a passion shared with school friend Emma Anderson. Together they formed Lush, a band whose instinctive blend of shoegaze textures and melodic pop carried them swiftly from cult acclaim to chart-tipping Britpop fame. Berenyi revisits the exhilarating tours, the studio highs and lows, and the surreal industry pressures that accompanied Lush’s rise, as well as the internal tensions and devastating tragedy that ultimately brought the band to an end.

At the centre of the memoir is Berenyi herself: navigating the dissonance between her outspoken stage persona and her fragile private world; confronting the misogyny and power imbalances of a male-dominated industry; and wrestling with the push-pull between artistic integrity and commercial expectation. She writes with sharp humour, clear-eyed self-awareness and an emotional candour rare in music memoirs.

“Fingers Crossed” stands as both a vivid portrait of a seminal band and a fearless exploration of survival, identity and reinvention.

About the author: Miki Eleonora Berenyi is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist best known as a founding member of Lush. She currently records and performs with Piroshka, whose second album was released in July 2021.