It was always bound to happen – it was just a matter of when. This week brought the news that Morrissey is to publish his debut novel, List of the Lost, via Penguin UK at the end of next month.
If his hugely successful initial incursion into the world of books with 2013’s Autobiography is anything to go by, we can expect long sentences, occasional bouts of overwritten prose but also some gut-bustingly funny turns of phrases.
Of course, Mozzer – who recently declined an honorary patronage from Trinity College Dublin’s Phil Soc – is far from the first musician to swap the microphone for the quill. Continuing the Smiths theme, Joe Pernice of The Pernice Brothers proved himself a talented scribe with his fictional novella based around the album Meat is Murder in Bloomsbury’s Thirty-Three and a Third series. Nick Cave’s second novel The Death of Bunny Munro is as off-the-wall enjoyable as you might expect from the so-called Prince of Darkness. Willy Vlautin of Richmond Fontaine and The Delines is a regularly cited musician-cum-author, whose excellent novels (including the heartbreaking Lean on Pete) often overshadow his musical career.
Josh Ritter fared reasonably well with the likeable Bright’s Passage in 2011, while Colin Meloy of The Decemberists crafted a fantasy world in an enchanted forest with the enjoyable Wildwood Chronicles – joining a special children’s literature branch of musical authors that also includes Madonna, Dolly Parton, Paul McCartney and, err, Geri Halliwell.
Of course, pre-existing fame doesn’t guarantee success in the literary world, either. Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy’s semi- autobiographical novel Gray (a tale of an up-and-coming punk band struggling to cope with the pressures of touring life – harumph!) was panned upon its publication in 2013. We’d say “Don’t give up the day-job”, but as Morrissey himself might sing, “There’s more to life than books, you know – but not much more . . .”
