Cheer up, Morrissey fans in America! His memoir is coming Dec. 3

Morrissey fans of America, fear not: The British music icon’s big new memoir will be landing on American shores in time for Christmas.

“Autobiography,” as Morrissey succinctly titled it, will be published in hardcover on Dec. 3 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, with a Penguin Classic paperback to follow. The release of the long-anticipated book was nearly canceled earlier this year — apparently in a dispute over whether it would be released as a Penguin Classic. It was finally released in the United Kingdom on Oct. 17.

“In the UK ‘Autobiography’ is currently No. 1 on the book charts and has become the fastest-selling music memoir of all time, overtaking the record previously held by Keith Richards’ ‘Life’,” G.P. Putnam said in a release. “Few artists have had the kind of creative staying power as Morrissey, and we are thrilled to be his American publisher.”

In Europe, Morrissey’s first book signing was not in the UK, but rather in Sweden. Some fans stood in line for more than 30 hours outside a bookstore in Gothenburg, in what was billed as his only appearance to launch his autobiography in Europe, the Guardian reported.

“It was a dream come true. He has been the soundtrack to my life,” David Lewin, 35, told the Guardian through tears after Morrissey signed his arm — and also three copies of “Autobiography.”

Reviews of “Autobiography” have been mixed, however.

Neil McCormick’s review in the Telegraph read like a bit like a Morrissey song. The singer writes “in a beautifully measured prose style that combines a lilting, poetic turn of phrase and an acute quality of observation, reveling in a kind of morbid glee at life’s injustices with arch, understated humour, a laughter that is a shadow away from depression or anger,” McCormick said.

But Jessica Winter wrote in Slate that large chunks of ‘Autobiography’ were badly in need of an edit, with writing that was “bitter and self-serving” in critical passages, and “at times so relentlessly whiny and misanthropic that it’s startling when Morrissey shares a flash of sober self-awareness.”

hector.tobar@latimes.com

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