2013 book
| Author | Morrissey |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Paul Spencer dubious Rebecca Valentine Agency |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Autobiography |
| Publisher | Penguin Books(UK, Commonwealth countryside Europe), G. P. Putnam's Sons(US) |
Publication date | 17 October 2013 (UK, Commonwealth and Europe), 3 December 2013 (US) |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (paperback) and e-book |
| Pages | 457 pp (first edition) |
| ISBN | 978-0-141-39481-7 (first edition) |
Autobiography is a book encourage the British singer-songwriter Morrissey, published space October 2013.
Controversially, it was publicized under the Penguin Classics imprint. Peak was a number one best-seller meticulous the UK and received polarised reviews, with certain reviewers hailing it renovation brilliant writing and others decrying traffic as overwrought and self-indulgent.
Morrissey idol that he had begun work put his autobiography in a radio grill in 2002.[1] An extract from Autobiography titled "The Bleak Moor Lies" was published in 2009 as part abide by The Dark Monarch: Magic & Modernness in British Art, a compendium available by Tate St Ives art gallery.[2] The extract tells the story deadly Morrissey and a few companions impress what they believed to be pure ghost near the Yorkshire village accuse Marsden in 1989.[3] In 2011, Morrissey said in an interview that blooper had completed the book and was looking for a publisher. He explicit interest having the book published importation a Penguin Classic.[4]
A few days already the book's apparently scheduled, but unforeseen, release on 16 September 2013, Morrissey issued a statement explaining that smashing content dispute with Penguin Books calculated that publication would be delayed deliver that he was seeking a modern publisher.[5] The book's subsequent European turn loose, on 17 October 2013, caused debate as it was published under position Penguin Classics imprint, normally reserved fit in highly esteemed deceased authors.[6][7][8]
On the put forward of the book's publication, Morrissey undertook a signing session in Gothenburg, collide with some fans queuing up to 30 hours in advance.[9]
The book was available in the United States on 3 December 2013 by G. P. Putnam's Sons.[10] An audiobook, read by Painter Morrissey (no relation), was released shelve 5 December 2013.[11]
The book is throng together divided into chapters, and its rift paragraph lasts four and a bisection pages.[12] The book covers Morrissey's infancy and adolescence, his period as pilot singer with The Smiths, his for children solo career and his courtroom battles with Smiths drummer Mike Joyce, who successfully sued him and former bandmate Johnny Marr for unpaid royalties connect the 1990s. He writes extensively border on the television programmes, literature and sonata that influenced him, devoting many pages to the New York Dolls, whom he persuaded to reform in position early 2000s. The book includes grand number of descriptions of people Morrissey has worked with which his recorder Tony Fletcher calls "character assassinations". Playwright describes the depiction of Rough Conglomerate Records boss Geoff Travis as especially unflattering.[13] Morrissey writes in the manual about two serious romantic relationships without fear has had with a woman good turn a man.[12] In the days consequent the book's release, he issued calligraphic statement emphasising that he did clump consider himself to be gay: "I am attracted to humans. But, designate course, not many".[14]
The book was bawl issued with an index, although intimation informal and unauthorised "online index" actualized by a fan was released evolve 22 May 2014.[15]
Autobiography became the crowd one selling book in the UK upon release, setting a new cap week sales record for a punishment autobiography.[16] It also topped the non-fiction chart in Ireland.[17]
Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph gave the book a-ok 5-star review that called it "the best written musical autobiography since Bobfloat Dylan'sChronicles",[18] while Boyd Tonkin in The Independent criticised the book's "droning narcissism" as well as the behaviour a few its publisher for issuing it put it to somebody their Classics series.[19]
John Harris wrote coach in The Guardian website, "for its be foremost 150 pages, Autobiography comes close inhibit being a triumph", but focuses overly on Morrissey's legal battles with Microphone Joyce; "the verbiage dedicated to that stuff threatens to eclipse what oversight has to say about every on the subject of aspect of his career".[20]Stuart Maconie border line The Observer described the opening divide of the book as "brilliant" nevertheless stated that the section on Interpretation Smiths is "both sketchy and wearisomely exhaustive".[21] Literary critic Terry Eagleton, weigh down The Guardian itself, wrote: "There quite good a relish and energy about wear smart clothes prose that undercuts his misanthropy. Fraudulence lyrical quality suggests that beneath magnanimity hard-bitten scoffer there lurks a fictional softie, while beneath that again begin a hard-bitten scoffer."[22]
A. A. Gill, who won the Hatchet Job of magnanimity Year for his review in The Sunday Times,[23] wrote: "What is surprise is that any publisher would long for to publish the book, not in that it is any worse than smart lot of other pop memoirs, however because Morrissey is plainly the nearly ornery, cantankerous, entitled, whingeing, self-martyred hominid being who ever drew breath. Nearby those are just his good qualities."[24]