Registered History Facts: Flu to You

AI Is A Lie

As predicted by your parents, I apologize deeply … but it IS -44 degrees outside, and EVERYONE is hacking themselves to death, and I am, regrettably, human. I am doing my small and pathetic best. From tomorrow, Atlanta is our mantra.

The Smiths: A Novella (June 11, 2026)

Wildly inventive and magnificently surreal, The Smiths: A Novella recounts the impact of an unconventional pop group from Manchester on one man’s life. Taking the form of a flâneuring journey through the landscape of memory, our anonymous protagonist is accompanied by the iconic French actress Carole Bouquet, who becomes his guide and interlocutor, asking about his life during the years The Smiths were together and the profound effect of their music upon him.

As the unlikely couple perambulate from the old Selfridge Hotel to West Hollywood by way of a park bench in Cavendish Square, their conversation interrogates and celebrates the joys of outlandish pop genius, the zealous dedication of fans and the cult of outsider disaffection given uproarious voice. As such, this is not a book about The Smiths but one that emerges from their music, their emotional register and their literary resonance.
Michael Bracewell’s novella cum-fairy tale is at once deeply romantic and laced with comedy – not unlike the band themselves – and perhaps (in fictional form) the most astute and celebratory portrait of The Smiths to date.

Publisher Lee Brackstone said: ‘After twenty years of working together on many projects – each being distinct in its own unique way – I believe The Smiths: a novella is a book Michael Bracewell was destined to write. How do you capture the delicacy, the fury, the majesty and the teenage glory of a band like The Smiths other than as a work of fiction? This is a book I will re-read countless times and each time I will consider the legacy of one of my favourite bands and their legion of fans in a different and more enlightened way each time. Sheer pop genius.’

Michael Bracewell is the author of seven novels and four works of non-fiction, including: Perfect Tense, Re-make/Re-model: The Art School Roots of Roxy Music, The Rise of David Bowie (with Mick Rock and Barney Hoskyns), Modern World: The Art of Richard Hamilton and Souvenir. His writing is included in The Faber Book of Pop (Ed Jon Savage and Hanif Kureishi) and his selected writings on visual art were published in The Space Between (Ed Doro Globus). His most recent book, Unfinished Business (2023) is a sequel to his novel The Conclave (1992).

Registered Historical Facts* is my regular series on Morrissey and the Smiths’ appearances in pop culture.

Read more Every date that Morrissey has ever cancelled and Registered Historical Facts: Smiths and Morrissey in Pop Culture.

* The title comes a line in The Queen is Dead: