Already a subscriber? Log in
Over the course of the book, Morrissey guides us through his childhood in Manchester, his years of unemployment, his tenure as lead singer of the Smiths, and his 26 years as a solo artist. The result isidiosyncratic, uneven, occasionally gauche, sometimes beautiful, tendentious, moving and funny. Morrissey himself exists somewhere on the outer margins of sanity, and has a kind of anti-talent for misfortune and deprivation. ‘You are obsessed with dead people’, his father tells him. ‘He is right of course’, says Morrissey.
The origins of this obsession lie in the impossibly bleak world that was Morrissey’s childhood. Here, family members die at an alarming rate (often in relatives’ spare bedrooms); school ‘offers nothing at all except a lifelong awareness of hate as a general truth’; ‘a journey by car is as unusual as space travel’, ‘prison is an accepted eventuality’, while houses are as depressed as their inhabitants: ‘Nannie’ lives in anticipation of ‘midnight peril’.
Against this there is the unalloyed joy of telly (Miss World being a particular passion: ‘There is no such thing as Mr World, perversely enough’); there is literature (Stevie Smith, Shelagh Delaney, Wilde, Housman, Auden, Betjeman); there is toast (to this day ‘an offer I could never refuse’); there is Mother, ‘never Mum (or the ghastly Manchester “Mam”)’; and there is pop music. T-Rex, David Bowie, Roxy Music, the New York Dolls all offer a picture of another life, and all convince the young Steven Patrick Morrissey that music is the only realm in which anything can happen. And from this conviction, a revelation: ‘If I can barely speak (which is true), then I shall surely sing.’
The journey from this point to the formation of the Smiths was not an easy one, with Morrissey’s chief complaints coming in the form of depression, unemployment and sexual anxiety. At one stage he applies, under duress, for a job as a postman: ‘I am turned down — deemed physically and psychologically incapable of delivering letters.’ But the Smiths did, eventually, happen, and the story that follows is well known. Swift success (inhibited by the spectacular incompetence of Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis), critical acclaim, a heartbreaking split after only five years and then the solo work.
Morrissey handles most of this with pace, wit and a pleasant tone of amused resignation, and he offers some interesting details about his love life (he had one, and it involved men and women). His ability to understand why people might find him ‘a bit much’ (in other words, unbearable) is appealing, as is his willingness to admit he was wrong — even if that only involves upgrading his estimation of a Smiths song from merely good to extremely good.
He is less successful when he attempts a literary flourish and frets about ‘being a writer’. Then his prose becomes laboured, and so opaque as to be meaningless. But when he sticks to writing naturally, he shows true literary talent. His line about Judge John Weeks ‘resembling a pile of untouched sandwiches’ is wonderfully vivid, and he is able to deal movingly with serious subjects while avoiding solemnity.
Morrissey’s themes may be longing, thwartedness, loss, and despair (‘photographs are what we all become’, he says), but they are treated with an irony, tenderness and exuberance that make Autobiography a wonderful accompaniment to the brilliant artistry of the Smiths and their sculpted singer — to the melodies, the elbows and the drums.
Because you read about book review
Also by Matthew Adams
Latest
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in