I think you totally overstate this, it’s pretty common in many other books I’ve seen and it’s not that important anyway. I’ve just read from Chapter 1 to page 160 so far (taking a break). Within those pages there are, as far as I can see, only 3 references to ‘me’ used and that covers approx 60,000 words! There’s no ‘I’s at all – not one! It’s all ‘he says’, ‘he recalls’. Skimming ahead to the next 100 pages I see some changes to the original book tense from ‘he says’ to ‘he told me’ mainly in relation to people like Scott Piering, Tony Wilson and Rob Allman – maybe that’s because they’ll all been dead for many, many years. Marr too sometimes, but probably to distinguish that these are quotes that were given to the writer over 20 years ago to avoid confusion about how they might be interpreted. Not that this matters a jot in any case. I think you miss the crucial point which is the author’s distance during the telling of the story, which has nothing to do with the Preface. In other Morrissey books the writer is right there in the story much of the time: Len Brown in Meetings tells us about his own life and the story of his brother: Bret talks about Morrissey and royalty and mentions in the middle of it all how he (Bret) received a letter from the Queen Mother!; Simpson tells us a lot about his feelings, how he lived in Manchester etc... Just saying, Severed Alliance (good or bad) doesn’t do that in the actual chapters. There’s no ‘Here I am at Morrissey’s school walking around the corridors ...’ type of stuff – it’s the interviewees who tell the main tale, despite what you say.
