Today I was paid a very high compliment. A friend picked up a copy of Two Become One and was flicking through it and told me it was heavy going. In three pages he’d spotted stuff about cancer and AIDS sufferers. He then asked me if there was any happiness in it. I’ve been asked this before about my books and while some people would be losing sleep, worried that they’re being perceived as a ‘miserabalist’; to me it is an honour because I am in good company.
I worship at the alter of Morrissey. He is probably the only living ‘hero’ I’ve got, to use a cheesy word. I first fell in love with The Smiths when I bought a compilation album called Tune Into the Tube just because it had Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood on and I heard This Charming Man and I just thought it was the best thing ever. Even as a twelve year old I could tell the lyrics were rather subversive and of course, that appealed to me (look at the song that was my original motivation for buying the album!). From then on I was hooked.
Mozza is a controversial figure painted as miserable and lacking in humour, his songs dark and sad. Anyone who listens closely to either The Smiths or his solo work will find the opposite is true. The songs are filled with tongue in cheek humour, painting vignettes of Northern life, quite similar to a show like Phoenix Nights or even Coronation Street. Maybe I’m a Southerner with a Northerner’s head but I love the wry humour of Victoria Wood and Alan Bennet. To me there’s nothing funnier than laughing at every day occurrences and creating characters from people I observe around me.
Even though I’m fourth generation Irish catholic, I was still bought up to feel guilty about everything I did and as a child, my nan was always regaling me with stories of death and people’s funerals alongside news of babies being born. When you’re raised like that you come to see life as filled with death, misery and joy. It was only the other day that I realised that in all three of my main books the main characters are Catholics – in Summerset the religious divisions are one of the biggest storylines. In Mad About the Boy, Lizzie is a lapsed catholic who suffers a spell of insanity after feeling guilty for her actions, and now in Two Become One, Toni converts to the Faith. None of this is ever conscious, it’s just how I write; but maybe I can just relate to that feeling that all bad things that happen to me do so because I’ve done something bad and at some point in my books my characters will feel the same way.
Back to Morrissey – yes he is controversial and he has said and done some rather silly things but surely performing draped in a Union Jack was no worse than David Bowie driving into Victoria Station in the 1970s giving the Sieg Heil sign, or Eric Clapton agreeing with Enoch Powell? Neither of them have been vilified for the rest of their careers.
Like many thirty and fortysomethings, I find listening to Morrissey and The Smiths comforting. It reminds me of a time when I felt isolated and like no one understood me. I come from an era where pop stars were people like Duran Duran, flashing their money and good looks. Suddenly Morrissey appeared – shy, awkward and singing about all those mixed up, lonely feelings all teenagers experience at some point and it struck a chord. Not everything in life was rosy and peachy and glamorous, some of us didn’t have many friends and always fancied people who don’t fancy us (that doesn’t change). It was good to hear our angst vocalised for once. Although I have to say that now looking back at old Smiths videos, I do think Morrissey realised he was rather good looking and played up to it and wasn’t as introverted as he liked us to think.
So, maybe my books are miserable. Maybe when you’re a celibate, animal loving, vegetarian artist with a Catholic guilt complex you do write miserable songs and stories. But to me my books – like Morrissey’s songs – just tell it like it is. Life is crap sometimes, other times it’s great and a lot of the time it’s just plain dull. I refuse to write chick lit, where everything is hunky dory and fluffy and all a girl has to worry about is what branch of Prada to shop in and if that rich guy in accounts is looking at her.
Give me Saturday Night and Sunday Morning over Sex and the City any day!
Ciao for now
kx
PS: On a serious note I’d just also like to express my sadness at the death of Natasha Richardson. I can’t help but think ‘There but for the Grace of God go I’. Back in 1994 I had a horrible fall whilst ice skating, falling headfirst onto the ice and banging the back of my head – apparently the crack was so loud it could be heard all around the rink. All I got was cracked ribs and concussion and I can’t help but think how lucky I am compared to this poor woman who had a fairly innocuous fall whilst skiing. It’s so sad and just serves to remind us that none of us know what’s around the corner.
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