Nothing

by Paul Morley

Morley revisits the past he has long struggled to forget: his childhood in Stockport, his teenage years, and the unfathomable suicide of his depressive father. He also considers how the deaths of Ian Curtis, Elvis Presley and Marc Bolan might have had an impact on the story.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir

426 pages, Paperback

First published June 19, 2000

About the author

Paul Morley is an English journalist who wrote for the New Musical Express from 1977 to 1983, during one of its most successful periods, and has since written for a wide range of publications. He has also has been a band manager and promoter, as well as a television presenter.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was thinking about this book in relation to B.S. Johnson and his suicide. Morley’s father, from a similar poorish background, committed suicide when his life was going nowhere. Johnson seems the antithesis to this: a man with a promising career in fiction, unpopular in his lifetime, but building a reputation among peers and critics. Despite his impressive achievements and high successes, he too ends his life with a whoosh of melodrama.

There’s something about the children of WW2, something about that generation that lead to unfortunate daddies. Raised by parents with one foot in the 19th century and the other in a more liberal post-war age, the sons are brought up in harsh and demanding regimes. As a result, the sons then flail around trying to meet these demands and impose the same on their brood, struggling to keep up with the modern world. This need for success, notions of manhood, pride and so on, if not achieved, lead to capital F failure.

Paul Morley, Best Rock Writer in UK, explores his own father’s suicide in this exhilarating memoir by taking the reader through his complex relationship to dead bodies (he saw Ian Curtis laid out on a stretcher), his waning relations with his dad, and the mindset that lead Mr Morley to end himself in a car somewhere outside Gloucester.

There’s a dedication to B.S. Johnson afterwards, and Morley’s approach to telling the story is as stubbornly non-linear: the first section is about his aborted attempts to write the book (or imaginary versions of the book), there’s a straightforward memoir section about his school life, a series of little vox pops on various themes, and transcribed interviews. His style is maximal, indulgent even, but always warm and witty.

[Godzilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a cheery, feel good book by any stretch of the imagination.

It's a stark and personal exploration of the author's response to his father committing suicide.

Whilst my father didn't commit suicide, he did die at a very similar point in my life, leaving me with all sorts of hanging feelings, regrets and ponderings.

Before reading this I wasn't particularly a fan of Paul Morley, this was mainly based on a couple of interviews I'd seen with him: he seemed a little pompous and self important. A shallow judgement, but one we're all guilty of from time to time.

However, this book reveals a different side to him entirely and by the end of the book I was sailing on a sea of empathy and understanding.

I found this a difficult read, not because of the style, but simply the subject matter. People tend to shy away from asking questions about the subject of death and how you feel about it. This book affirmed my doubts and worries as being something most people in the situation feel and have to deal with. For that alone this is an outstanding read, there are no punches pulled and no apparent self censorship.

[Roy Ferguson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up on a hotel shelf of books left by holidaymakers in Menorca. It caught my attention as it was authored by Mr. Paul Morley who I avidly read in my teenage years in the late seventies as punk and new wave music crashed the music scene and in the process took no prisoners. Paul along with Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons formed part of the writers stable for the New Musical Express during its golden age. It is many years since I read Pauls irreverent reviews but I was looking forward to engaging with his literary style once again. I was not enthralled by the experience as I found the first third to first half of the book quite plodding and piecemeal with its use of lists and monotonous repetition. The subject matter was dark outlining Pauls struggles with his depressing time at Stockport Grammar School and the backdrop of Pauls father’s descent into depression and ultimate suicide. In the book I felt that the book did not capture how the glorious music of the seventies through glam into punk exploded bringing light and excitement to young musical pilgrims who were blessed to be on that particular musical journey. The second half of the book was much better as Paul began to try to investigate and explore what caused his father to tread an inexorable route to oblivion. He did this with the help of his family and in so doing he uncovered a real warmth and affection for his father, which somehow was missing from the first half of the book. The discovery of his father’s final journey and demise in an area of outstanding natural beauty on Minchinhampton was a real page turner towards the end of the book. I felt uplifted towards the end of the book as I formed the impression that Paul’s questioning and probing created a catharsis for both him and his family.

[D.S. Mattison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laughing in the face of death. Laughing in spite of death. Laughing out of nervous fear of death. Happy to be reading a book all about death. Cohesive narrative despite obsessive detours. Treasure map to pre and post punk history. Crumpled map of Paul Morley's life. For an American, gives one a sense of Britishness, as if it were the long lost cousin of Americanness, which I entirely understand. They meet in a cup of PG Tips at Boston Harbor. Refreshing references to philosophical and literary masters - Morely relishes his role as the autodidact. Fits perfectly into the puzzle of being I've been constructing. A quick, deep, nerve-shaking, humor-filled, life-and-death-affirming read.

[BC1GR · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Morley is a writer and columnist, for NME in the 80s, and a personal friend of many Manchester / Factory label bands. This is a personal and grinding depressing novel about his upbringing, his youth and his father's suicide as mirrored to his relationship with the band Joy Division and Ian Curtis' decline and suicide. A very slow depressing read, but it yields a different man's perspective on the reality and cult of Joy Division as well as it's legacy.

[Regan Sharp · Rating 2 out of 5]

When Morley writes about music, he is passionate and engaging. When he writes about his own life, he sounds pretentious and desperate. Unfortunately, this is an autobiography about a music writer, with far too little about music and far too much about the writer.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

That Paul Morley saw Ian Curtis on his deathbed. That 'nothing' is a euphemism meaning 'everything'.

SOUNDTRACK: Closer by Joy Division