Still going after 30 years, The Fall are one of the most distinctive British bands, their music--odd, spare, cranky, and repetitious--an acknowledged influence on The Smiths, The Happy Mondays, Nirvana, and Franz Ferdinand. And Mark E. Smith IS The Fall--47 members have come and gone over the years yet he remains its charismatic leader, a professional outsider and all-round enemy of compromise, a true enigma. There have been a number of biographies of the legendary Smith, but this is the first time he has opened up in a full autobiography. For the first time we get to hear his full, candid take on the ups and downs of a band as notorious for its in-house fighting as for its great music, and on a life that has endured prison in America, drugs, bankruptcy, divorce, and the often bleak results of a legendary thirst.