In 2003, the English writer John Murray published his Booker Prize-listed novel Jazz Etc. It narrated the life and times of a female guitarist, the improbably named Fanny Golightly, from working class Cumbria. One observer in the story describes Golightly's playing thus: "I suppose jazz is the only name for it. It was as delirious as heavy metal, but far too complex to be any sort of rock. Most of the time she was playing as if she wanted to set herself on fire."

So convincing was Murray's depiction that many readers were fooled into believing that Golightly existed. However, those seeking a real-life counterpart could do much worse than check out Hedvig Mollestad, a Norwegian woman whose brawny guitar style has been described as everything from doom jazz to heavy avant prog. If an obvious template for Mollestad might be the