by Peter Hook
First published 2013
Peter Hook picks up his bass guitar and looks back at the three years that changed music forever. As a founding member of Joy Division, he watched four young men from Manchester transform from punk wannabes with broken equipment into creators of a dark, hypnotic sound that would influence generations. Hook recounts the band's rapid rise from local clubs to the brink of international success, their friendships and bitter conflicts, and the tragic night in 1980 when lead singer Ian Curtis took his own life. He reveals the personalities behind the music, from the mercurial Curtis to Factory Records founder Tony Wilson and producer Martin Hannett. With candid detail and unexpected humor, Hook chronicles how Joy Division recorded two landmark albums and singles like "Love Will Tear Us Apart" before Curtis's suicide shattered everything on the eve of their first American tour.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, non-fiction, music
Vibes: candid, emotional, intimate
Tropes: band-history, music-scene
Setting: Manchester
Period: 1980s
416 pages · Hardcover · Dey Street Books
Content warnings: suicide