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Time Out, 10/12/03

Before fame embraced him, Morrissey wrote a pair of fanboy pamphlets for his lost heroes New York Dolls and James Dean. One imagines they would have read rather like this: dutiful biography giving way to wide-eyed adoration, heartfelt pleas and catty, withering asides, all couched in arch, witty prose. However, by calling this gloriously shameless biog ‘Saint Morrissey’, author Simpson pre-empts criticism of hagiography while simultaneously giving the last English pop star the veneration he’s demanded during 20 years of self-inflicted martyrdom.

Indeed, it’s an oddity that, despite the many fascinating faces he presents to press and public, the former Smiths frontman has so far only been properly biographied by Johnny Rogan. Simpson’s ‘psycho-bio’ offers a handsome counterpoint to that sober doorstep, choosing not to examine the life to explain the art, but instead studying the lyrics to celebrate the man. The result is a deliciously deviant deification.

Simpson’s love-letter takes in love, literacy, class, violence, sex and all the other staples with which Morrissey, and England, is obsessed, and in the process casts a caustic eye over the country and pop vacuum Morrissey’s defection to Los Angeles has created. It’s a provocative and precocious read, and, as he really starts to let rip, one senses that Simpson thoroughly enjoyed himself in the writing of it. Smiths fans will love it, and even Morrissey himself might arch an eyebrow in appreciation.

- Peter Watts