Bernard Sumner Traces Career in Joy Division and New Order for New Memoir

BY Alex HudsonPublished Jul 10, 2014

Peter Hook has already revisited his past career with memoirs, and as he continues work on his planned New Order tome, his estranged former bandmate Bernard Sumner is telling his own side of the story. The autobiographical Chapter and Verse will be out on September 25 through Bantam Press.

Unlike Hook, who split up his accounts of the Haçienda, Joy Division and New Order into separate books, Chapter and Verse condenses the whole story into one. It's subtitled New Order, Joy Division and Me, and it traces Sumner's life all the way back to childhood.

An announcement describes the book like this: "Sometimes moving, often hilarious and occasionally completely out of control, this is a tale populated by some of the most colourful and creative characters in music history, such as Ian Curtis, Tony Wilson, Rob Gretton and Martin Hannett."

The news that Sumner has a book doesn't come as a surprise. Sumner announced last year that a memoir was on the way, and Hook discussed the book in an interview with Exclaim! last year. "I notice [singer] Bernard's doing one [a New Order book] as well now, which made me laugh," Hook said. "Y'know what he'll be doing soon is playing the LPs in full."

Meanwhile, New Order apparently have a new album in the works, and this week in Vancouver they showed off a few of their new tracks.

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