Summary: About a month ago, I spammed my WNYC colleagues with the following email: Any of the Smiths/Morrissey fans on staff own the UK edition of Morrissey's "Autobiography," published late last year? Over the next three weeks, I’ll be leading a Soundcheck mini-project in which fans, guests and, yes, Joel read the memoir and chat about it online. The US edition omits a few words (and a photograph) that are present in the UK edition. Before I purchase the British book – in pounds, which just feels weird – does anyone have a copy of the UK edition? Willing to lend it to me for about a month? Don’t make me use a currency converter! You might say … I want the one I can’t have and it’s driving me mad. Get it? That's a Smiths lyric there at the end, an oh-so-clever wink at fellow Moz fans. See how I poked fun at the Brits and their silly money? U-S-A, U-S-A! And, "currency converter" -- genius! I was such a different person back in February. Then I read Autobiography. In this podcast finale to the Morrissey Book Club, I talk with Tony Fletcher, author of the Smiths biography A Light That Never Goes Out. Tony joined us at the launch of the Club, to comment on the 30th anniversary of the Smiths' debut LP and to issue a gentle warning that, by reading Autobiography, I'd gotten myself into a "whole lot of trouble." Tony should know: He posted a 6,000-word review of the 460-odd page book just hours after it was published. That either makes him the fastest writer and reader in the world -- or he's well connected. To be honest, my first clue that I was in over my head came before Tony's warning. Nina Blanchard, the co-worker who lent me her prized copy of the UK edition, had set it down because Morrissey's prose was "a bit much." Yet she was clearly a dedicated fan, one who later directed me to a great YouTube video inspired by the book and a truly novel piece of band merch, a Smiths knit sweater ("100% vegan-friendly acrylic"). But she couldn't stomach the book? Uh-oh. My next clue: The book's doozy of a first line. "My childhood is streets upon streets upon streets upon streets." What does that even mean? The clues kept on coming, but I didn't take them. Early in the book, Morrissey merely snipes at characters (bassist Andy Rourke, Geoff Travis of Rough Trade) whom he will roast at length later on. My Soundcheck colleagues, Katie Bishop and Mike Katzif, both quit reading the book before hitting triple-digit page numbers. If memory serves, they may have actually screamed, "Sorry, man. You're on your own!" and scampered away from our cubicles. Still, I pressed on. And dammit, I finished the thing. I'm a better person for it. But a different one. You see, since I first cracked the spine of Autobiography last month, I'm an even bigger Morrissey fan than I was before -- despite all the bonkers stuff in the book. I've been listening to solo albums I'd overlooked, like 1994's Vauxhall & I, and saying aloud (to an empty room): "Wow. There isn't a bad song on here." I've learned some things from Morrissey's book about children's television, about the New York Dolls and about arcane parts of the British legal system. I ran a half marathon that came to symbolize the troubles and triumph I experienced while reading this book. Also, I watched Captain Phillips on my Roku. That had nothing to do with Morrissey, but man, can that Paul Greengrass make an action film or what? "Port 30 degrees! Port 30 degrees!" OK, I'm drifting. (That happened a lot while reading Autobiography.) But before I return to Mark Lewison's amazing, page-turning, legal-battle-free biography The Beatles: All These Years, Vol. I, it's time for a bit of therapy. For this session, I mean podcast, I'm joined Tony and producer Katie Bishop for a cathartic outpouring of emotion. Because it's Morrissey, after all, and that's the way he'd want it.
