In the interests of fairness, I try to avoid looking at what other people have said about a book I'm reviewing. With Morrissey's , sadly, this was impossible. As soon as it was published, the internet erupted with the sound of a thousand guffaws. Articles quickly appeared with titles such as "Morrissey's debut novel: the 10 most embarrassing lines ".

The mirth focused on a sex scene that made reference to a male character's "bulbous salutation" and a female's "otherwise central zone". The book became bookies' favourite for the Literary Review's bad sex award. There was also a huge sense of disappointment - it was even worse than feared.

So what is the novel actually about? Having slogged through the longest 118 pages I can ever remember reading, I am only slightly clearer than I was at the start. There's a four-man American track relay team: Ezra, Nails, Harri and Justy. They kill someone in the woods. Someone dies. They dig up a body, prepare for a race. And so on, all written in a sludge of assonance and alliteration, like a bad James Joyce impersonation.

What haunts this dreadful book, and the coverage it has received, is that between 1983 and 1987 - some would argue into the 1990s - Morrissey wrote some of the great British pop lyrics. The Smiths' songs were plaintive tales of yearning, and at their best, his words have a wonderful curt poetry. Sad, romantic, unmistakably British. Simple themes - love and loss - gave force to the jangling guitars.