Had Johnny Marr not rung the 23-year-old Morrissey’s doorbell back in 1982, you can fairly easily see your way to an alternative future where Morrissey would now be publishing his tenth or twelfth novel. His first probably would have appeared blushingly around 1988, following the usual couple of stillbirths and abortions gurgling in the bottom drawers of the desk. Morrissey the novelist would have come good in the mid-1990s (novelists generally hitting their stride in their thirties) and we would now be dealing with “mature” Morrissey, the imperial phase.
However, as it stands, Morrissey the 56-year-old debut novelist (at that age Lawrence was dead, Wilde was dead, Nabokov had just published Lolita) is forced to appear on stage instantly and in full bloom. What, you may be wondering, is the emperor wearing? Absolutely nothing, it turns out.
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