The Smiths

I am sure that what I remember is not necessarily what actually happened, but I can only write what I remember. Wildly inventive and beautifully surreal, The Smiths: A Novella asks how one man's life could somehow be irrevocably changed by an unconventional pop group from Manchester. Taking the form of a flâneuring journey through the landscape of memory, our anonymous protagonist accompanied by the actress Carole Bouquet, this is not a book about The Smiths but one that emerges from their music, their emotional register and their literary resonance. As the unlikely couple perambulate from the old Selfridge Hotel to West Hollywood by way of a park bench in Cavendish Square, their conversation interrogates and celebrates the joys of outlandish pop genius, the zealous dedication of fans and the cult of outsider disaffection given uproarious voice. Michael Bracewell's first novella since Perfect Tense (praised by Stephen Fry as a 'unique and priceless pearl of a book'), The Smiths is at once deeply romantic and laced with comedy - not unlike the band themselves.