Morrissey Wins Bad Sex in Fiction Award
Morrissey has earned a spot in a pantheon occupied by literary giants such as Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer and John Updike, winning the Literary Review‘s 2016 Bad Sex in Fiction Award, the BBC reports.
The rock legend earned the top prize for his debut novel, List of the Lost, which tells the story of a relay track team in Seventies Boston, whose members are cursed by a demon and killed off one-by-one. The judges were wowed by an “ecstatic scene” between one of the runners, Ezra, and his girlfriend, Eliza.
Examples of Morrissey’s riveting prose include, “Eliza and Ezra rolled together into the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation.” Later that same sentence, the wordsmith described the tryst as a “dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation.” He also employed such verbiage as “barrel-rolled,” “bulbous salutation” and “whacked and smacked.” The scintillating scene can be read on the Literary Review‘s website.
Morrissey was unfortunately unable to accept his award in person as he’s on the road in support of his 2014 album, World Peace Is None of Your Business.
Literary Review has handed out the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award since 1993 in an effort to “draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction, and to discourage them.” Pornographic and expressly erotic literature are not considered for the prize.
December could prove even more fruitful for Morrissey, who is also in the running for a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Smiths. The post-punk outfit is among this year’s nominated acts, and voting remains open to the public until December 9th; the 2016 class will be announced later this month.