News | Thursday, 24th April 2008
MMU's 'Rock Star Fantasist'
Critical acclaim for Simon Armitage's Gig
SENIOR Lecturer in Creative Writing Simon Armitage has released his new book of rock 'n' roll musings to critical acclaim.
Simon, who teaches poetry in The Writing School, delves into his youthful passion for punk and post-punk ('punk with overcoats') in his richly warm memoir-cum midlife-crisis confession: Gig: The Life and Times of a Rock-Star Fantasist.
Witty and brilliantly observed, he reminisces about his upbringing in 1980s Yorkshire, his dreams of pop stardom – "with no instruments and no particular talent" – and his memories of teen boredom alleviated by a stream of rock and pop gigs - the Smiths, the Fall, the Blue Nile!
The twist comes as Armitage, at the age of 44, bids to form the band he never formed but always wanted to. He and his mate Craig, a "perfectly respectable web manager" seek to finally fulfil their rock 'n' roll fantasies via The Scaremongers, a band that spent more time thinking up its name than writing any songs.
Sunday Times Author of the Year and Ivor Novello Award winner, Armitage is the author of four stage plays and recently worked on a translation of the middle English classic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Reviewers of Gig have said:
"I love books like this. A writer writing about what he knows and what he loves and things he has done, with absolutely no thought as to the marketability of the book. Armitage, 'our best known younger poet', leaps apparently effortlessly from reminiscence to reportage and back, with loads of room for rumination in between." – The Spectator.
"I read this book in one sitting. It moved me to tears, to shouts of laughter, and made me look at even the most mundane things in a different way. Here is someone you would share a pint with in an instant (there would be so much to discuss: not least his laudable dislike of jazz; or the fact that he came, late and with difficulty, to Bob Dylan" - Dan Cairns in The Independent.
"Gig is full of great lines such as Armitage's flip, accurate analysis of the tribes that succeeded punk, and a description of the latter-day Morrissey as 'something from mythology, as if those tailored Italian trousers might be hiding a pair of goat's legs'" – Steve Jelbert –The Independent
Gig: The Life and Times of a Rock-Star Fantasist by Simon Armitage is published by Viking.
Writing School successes
Creative Writing student Mari Strachan has signed a two-novel contract with Canongate for The Earth Hums in B Flat and a further book.
Graduate Linda Chase now a tutor on the MA in Creative Writing was highly recommended by the Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition for Extended Family (Carcanet)
For more about the MMU Writing School, go to www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/english.
