Tony Wilson was known for many things, e.g. being TV presenter, enfant terrible, entrepreneur, founder of the immensely successful Factory Records label and essentially an inspiring cultural catalyst and trailblazer at the centre of a myriad of creative networks, without whom genre-coining bands like Joy Division, Happy Mondays and New Order would have not had a veritable launchpad.
Needless to say, having Paul Morley, a respected veteran music writer and contemporary of Wilson, at the helm of putting the story together, paired with the fact that he meticulously researched the subject for over a decade, results in a comprehensive coverage of Wilson’s life and how it was influenced by the emergence of punk, which subsequently fundamentally changed the course of his career and outlook on life.
With a knack for capturing the spirit of live gigs as well as the grimy context of late 1970s Manchester along with its tangible effects on the protagonists, Morley paints a picture that is bound to resonate with both aficionados and the yet to be inducted.
With its close to six hundred pages, From Manchester With Love is a genre-defying engaging, detailed, deliberately digressive and immersive tour de force that feels like a hybrid between a factual biography and metafiction, interweaving truths and legends, blurring fact and fiction and at times being reminiscent of the literature of Laurence Sterne.
A literary monument to a life less ordinary and the creation of a critical underground institution with Paul Morley channeling the essence of Tony Wilson’s adored spirit, taking on his vernacular to an extent where it at times feels difficult to distinguish between the author’s and the subject’s voice and one that makes one realize that without Factory Records all the bands on the roster would have lacked depth in their now mythical dimensions.
---
Published by Faber Books (USA) and Faber & Faber (UK).
