This Searing Light, The Sun and Everything Else: Joy Division: The Oral History

Jon Savage's oral history of Joy Division is the last word on the band that ended with the suicide of Ian Curtis in Macclesfield on 18 May, 1980. 

It weaves together interviews conducted by the author, but never used in the making of the film Joy Division (2007) which told the story of the band in their own words, as well as those of their peers, collaborators, & contemporaries. 

Here are 15 or so vivid witnesses to the band's genesis, meteoric rise, and tragic demise, including Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner, Annike Honore, Deborah Curtis, Paul Morley, Tony Wilson, Rob Gretton, Martin Hannet ... 

It is the story of young men driven to create & cause rock n' roll havoc inspired by literature, radical ideas, & the wasteland that was post-industrial Manchester in the late 70s. 

It is as intense & funny & alive on the page as only an oral history can be, recalling masterpieces like Edie by Jean Stein & Meet Me in the Bathroom by Lizzy Goodman. It is essential reading.