Biographical tomes usually fall into 2 categories – the actual biography, written by some 3rd party probably most common, and unless ‘authorised’, often unwelcome. Stick ‘auto’ on the front and, ghost-writing aside, you have the life of the subject , in their own words.
Confusion, appropriately, is certainly in a category I’ve not encountered before – the biography with the ‘right to reply’.
And Sumner takes the chance fully, denying pretty much anything that shows him in a bad light, and usually tetchily – take the accusations from Peter Hook that he and Sumner dressed up in brown Scout shorts with painted-on swastikas – “Er, I don’t think so” – while he defends Ian Curtis – “so, a Nazi, racist and a pedophile… it’s not the sort of thing Ian would have done,” he says in response to accusations including one by Stone Roses’ Ian Brown of encounters with under-age fans. He also seizes the chance to disagree with producer Martin Hannet, Cargo distribution boss John Brierley, stories that he was a sufferer from pre-gig nerves – “not true” his terse reply – and even 15-year old reviews from the music press.
However, Sumner is often tangential to the story with his responses only cropping up every so often. Instead, it’s another book encompassing the Factory and Hacienda years – but is none the less entertaining a read. With plenty of input from the guys who ran Factory’s white-elephant-cum-dance-mecca, and childhood friends like. Terry Mason (friend of Hook and Sumner, sometime Joy Division manager, and attendee of the Sex Pistols’ show at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall) is a goldmine for info, while Leroy Richardson who went from glass collector to manager at the failed Hacienda fills in the later New Order years. We can forget that it’s a biog of Bernard Sumner at all, which is as well as you get the impression that this part of the story isn’t all that interesting anyway. Well, apart from his family history. Nolan goes back to Sumner’s childhood, back to his parents’ disabilities and delves into the reasons for his various aliases, but the book spans over 40 years, all the way through to literally a couple of months ago with Peter Hook giving us as close as we’re likely to get on the split status of New Order.
More chat with Steven Morris and Gillian Gilbert would have been good as would some input from Johnny Marr and even the Pet Shop Boys, but for readers more interested in peeling back the surface perhaps the tack taken – with old colleagues and childhood friends providing the bulk of the input – we may have the true Barney Sumner, or indeed Bernard Dicken.
It’s clear that David Nolan – whose account of that legendary Manchester Pistols show ‘The Gig That Changed The World’ garnered him some acclaim – has done a lot of research for Confusion and we can only assume that if someone like Morris or Marr isn’t in there it wasn’t his choice. This means that the odd typo rather leaps out at the reader given the precision of the actual factual research. This is counteracted by the trivia and the old pictures which set the tome off nicely. Such deep drilling may rankle with Sumner, clearly a rather private person, even with his unique chance to come back and set the story straight
It’s hinted in the prelude that Bernard Sumner would rather this at-times probing account of his life didn’t exist. didn’t exist. However, for the inquisitive New Order fan, it will be very welcome.
Also chief newshound at Jockrock
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