I haven't read The Severed Alliance since it was first released, and since I remember cutting school to buy it, that must have been more than 20 years ago! (OK, just checked, 1992. Cripes.) I was very excited about it at the time, as it was really the first in-depth, extensive book about the Smiths, and Morrissey was the Great Unknown—I guess he still is, but not as much so. In those pre-internet days, I didn't question what I was reading, and it wasn't until I read the NME some time after about Morrissey wishing for Rogan to die in an M3 pile-up that I had any idea about whether it was entirely accurate. I suspect I'd see it through a very different lens now than I did when I was 17.