Dear Morrissey

[dotinthesky]

‘This supermarket has more books than the town’s bookshop,’ I say to my brother and he laughs. We are both doing our weekly shop and we know that the town’s bookshop – a newsagent, actually, with mostly self-help, Christian and Y.A. books on display – has less and less books these days, and doesn’t even sell printed newspapers anymore.

Then I spot by the supermarket’s cashier “Caro Morrissey” (or "Dear Morrissey" though its original title in English is "The Wrong Boy"). I pick it up and read its back cover. It seems to be a teen story, perhaps in the mould of “Love, Simon” or one of John Green’s novels. I’ve never heard of it before and I’m an ex-Morrissey fan!

I once heard The Bolshoi’s “Sunday Morning” piped through the supermarket and it stopped me dead on my tracks. It’s only ever Brazilian country music (“Música Sertaneja”) in this corner of Brazil. Hardly anyone speaks English, and much less reads (unless it’s the Bible). Morrissey is as likely a presence here as goths in moon boots.

I get home and Google the author, Willy Russell. He wrote the plays “Educating Rita” and “Shirley Valentine”. “The Wrong Boy” was his first and only novel, written in June 1991 – an epistolary novel about an awkward teenager who writes letters to his hero, the Smiths’ frontman.

You really have no control on where your creations will go after they are released into the world.

Comments

[magic-treehouse.livejournal.com]

I had no idea that Willy Russell had written a book!

[picosgemeos.livejournal.com]

And I had no idea "Educating Rita" was a play hehe. Made me want to rewatch the film.

[magic-treehouse.livejournal.com]

You didn't?! I've seen the film but it's one play I'd actually love to see.

[magic-treehouse.livejournal.com]

How freaky. I've just got an email saying that Educating Rita is coming to Leeds next year!

[picosgemeos.livejournal.com]

You have to go see it! ;-)

[naturalbornkaos.livejournal.com]

Ohh, I read this book many years ago! Krys had a copy lying around and I picked it up and read it in about a day (very 'easy' read)... I enjoyed the Morrissey conceit but the whole thing was way too focused on doing gross things with foreskin. It's one of those books that I've never managed to quite get out of my mind, but not for the right reasons!

[picosgemeos.livejournal.com]

I don’t think I’ll read it...