Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0711997624, Paperback)

Having known Fall leader Mark E. Smith since 1977, Manchester based music writer Mick Middles is ideally placed to pen the first ever authorized biography of this most inscrutable of bands led by one of the few genuine characters in rock today. Middles' biography, written with the full co-operation of Smith, will detail some 26 years on the fringe of the Manchester punk scene, three dozen albums, endless touring, two successful staged plays and numerous spoken-word events. Enigmatic, highly quotable, and adored by the music press, Smith s distinctive brand of working class intellectualism and unpretentious broadsides make for a biography that is highly entertaining and wholly illuminating.