Morrissey. Autobiography.

Is your experience while reading Morrissey's description of an elderly schoolteacher who "favours the girls" -- "Miss Redmond is aging, and will never marry, and will die smelling of attics." -- overlayed with your memories of his lush Will Never Marry from Bona Drag?

The levels of pentimenti across time are a constant in his Autobiography [Kindle], which spans his life from childhood to now and often shifts past action to the present tense. Do you understand writing at all? Study this early, gay paragraph to see how the switch in tenses 1) mimics the other boy's jump to manhood, 2) reinforces the break between the straight Anthony and our crying Steven, and 3) perpetuates that loss:

"It was with Anthony Morris that a torrent of nervous energy unleashed itself in the ripped-out houses in the dangers of faltering light. It was he who told me why girls fluttered around me at St Wilfrids, and what it was they wanted. He told me this because I didn't know, and even when I knew, I was less interested than when I didn't know. I had no idea it was anything other than a mere spout. Many years later, by 1974, Anthony has jumped to stern custodian manliness , and for once his vicious stare is aimed at me: 'You like all those queers, don't you?' he bites. By this he means my merging musical obsessions, and my heart sinks down into a new darkness. There is nothing I can salvage from this accusation, and the eyes pool, as I lose." 

Also, "custodian." 

Like his music, Autobiography has been slammed by haters and exulted by critics: NME ("nigh-on perfect"), The Independent ("a rococo triumph"), The Telegraph ("beautifully measured prose style that combines a lilting, poetic turn of phrase and acute quality of observation"), The New Yorker ("As I floated, unmoored, Morrissey would drop in a single masterfully executed sentence"), and Rolling Stone, which said, "Practically every paragraph has a line or two that demands to be read aloud to the mirror, tattooed on foreheads, carved on tombstones."  

Somebody, hug him.

UPDATE: Stop me if you think you've heard this one before: Spin and Towleroad report disturbing news that certain gay aspects of the UK book have been removed for the American edition. Now, the only cuts cited concern his relationship with photographer Jake Walters -- (he took that terrific shot of Moz holding a baby) -- including the removal of a photograph of Jake as a boy, so it's conceivable this is about Walters' lawyers rather than Putnam's homophobia.

Comments

[Steve N]

He will be signing books at the Union Sq B&N on Thursday. Signing. No reading, no performance, no Q&A, just signing. And only the book. No albums, no ephemera, no body parts, just the book. I suppose that this is more honest in a way, as most people only want to get the autographs. I guess. He is scheduled to be there from 7-9, which means that for 2 hours or as long as the book supply lasts he will be signing, signing, signing, signing. . .
If I knew every line of every song as you do, I would come up with the perfect quote here. I'll leave that to you