Morrissey

From Publishers Weekly No one has ever been as sublimely uncomfortable about being a pop star, says Hopps, describing Morrissey, the lead singer of the 1980s band, the Smiths, who went on to a successful solo career in the following decade. But Hopps wants to argue that his hero is more than just a pop star: he's a radical subversion of the traditional values of pop music who restored the genre's ability to give voice to dysfunction and alienation. The argument veers from the defensive to the impenetrably academic; the lyrics of one song, for example, are described as an unshackling of the referential function of language, while another is an urban parody of the Liebestod of Tristan and Isolde . It's not that Morrissey can't be compared, as he is here, to the likes of Oscar Wilde, Ronald Firbank and Christina Rossetti—or, perhaps most extensively, Samuel Beckett. As a singer and a songwriter, he is by just about any standard a significant artist. But Hopps's enthusiastic appraisal is at times so overwrought that it almost feels as if he's trying to convince himself as much as his academic colleagues of the validity of pursuing a thesis that is not nearly as provocative as it hopes to be. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review "It's the best book-length explication of Morrissey's peculiar genius I've come across." --Simon Reynolds "Finally, Morrissey's astonishing career as a writer and singer is treated with the scholarship it deserves. This is an outstanding, elegant book, of interest not only to Morrissey's fans, but to anyone interested in the literary capacity of pop music, as well as its power to enchant, seduce and unnerve." --Michael Bracewell, author of England Is Mine and The Nineties: When Surface Was Depth "Hopps gives [Morrissey] plenty of passionate, well-informed attention in The Pagaent of His Bleeding Heart , a stylish and seductive hardcover from Continuum that reflects the love and devotion of its author to the subject's worldview and musical expression. This is not a rote biography or analysis of the shebeens and spielers with collaborators, but an ideal inquiry into the aesthetic and forces which shape Morrissey's lyrics, persona, and own influence on worldwide music culture." --KEXP, Seattle, WA "Hopps manages to tell Moz's life story in a way that educates even the most hardcore fans (like me). By comparing the artist to Romantic poets and incorporating references to film and other art forms, Hopps examines the former Smiths frontman with a critical eye and treats him as one of the most talented singer/songwriters of the last century. (And he is, isn't he?) Dive in, grab a highlighter and savor the plentiful footnotes." --Whitney Matheson, USA Today's PopCandy "[This is] the first book to focus on Morissey's lyrical output." --_Publishing News_ A timely and profound novel that entrances and entertains. In Melbourne, a baby girl is found abandoned in the Victorian Art Gallery. She is wrapped in a shawl decorated with a motif that links her to ancient rock paintings in the Kimberley. . . In Los Angeles, a movie producer's dying daughter is haunted by nightmares after visiting the Kimberley. . . And it is to the Kimberley that ex-nun Beth Van Horton brings a disparate group of travellers whose lives will be changed forever. The Kimberley - a land that cradles Australia's ancient treasures - is also home to a people whose powerful secrets could unlock the future for modern mankind. In Melbourne, a baby girl is found abandoned in the Victorian Art Gallery. She is wrapped in a shawl decorated with a motif that links her to ancient rock paintings in the Kimberley ... In Los Angeles, a movie producer's dying daughter is haunted by nightmares after visiting the Kimberley ... And it is to the Kimberley that ex-nun Beth Van Horton brings a desperate group of travellers whose lives will be changed forever. The Kimberley - a land that cradles Australia's ancient treasures - is also home to a people whose powerful secrets could unlock the future for modern mankind In Melbourne, a young woman abandons her baby girl, wrapped in a shawl with an ancient rock painting in the Kimberley on it. In Los Angeles, a movie producer's dying daughter is haunted by nightmares since returning from the Kimberley. And a former Catholic nun, Beth Van Horton, brings a disparate group of travellers to the Kimberley. They are all forever changed by this mystical place