The Big Midweek: Life Inside The Fall - Hardcover

From on-the-road antics to studio sessions and pretty much everything in between, [The Big Midweek] offers a fresh look into what it's like to be part of Mark E Smith's cult band. (NME)

The Big Midweek provides a captivating portrayal of an iconic band's rise to fame from the perspective of a steadfast insider. Hanley's ability to walk the reader through bedlam while sustaining objective distance is commendable, lending the text credibility in a genre that too often collapses into egocentrism, nostalgia, and retribution. (Simon Lee, Los Angeles Review of Books)

There's an irresistible tension in The Big Midweek between the Fall's glum ordinariness and the brilliance of their best music which, after all, concerns the terrible strangeness of the mundane. Gripping. (Barney Hoskins, Guardian)

Anyone who's been in a band will identify with 90% of this book. (Record Collector)

You don't have to like The Fall to enjoy this book. You don't have to like Mark E Smith to enjoy this book... Hell, you don't even have to like MUSIC to enjoy this book! It's a gripping tale of forged and broken relationships, friendships and betrayal... a complicated, sometimes harrowing journey into the heart of one of the most talked-about bands of the last thirty-plus years. (Marc Riley)

Guileless and coolly measured... even when describing the most chaotic and unpleasant scenarios... unflinching in its detail. (The Wire)

Darkly comic. (The Big Issue)

A book for music lovers. (Reader's Digest)

Juicy details are plentiful, laying flesh on the bones of some of the great unanswered questions about The Fall. (Manchester Evening News)

Whether you are a fan of the band or not, this is a fantastic rock'n'roll memoir. A wonderful reminder of what it once meant to be in a genuinely dangerous and groundbreaking group. (The Idler, Book of the Week)

A gripping, hilarious, uncomfortable and sobering read. (Vive Le Rock)

--Stewart Lee

All the reasons why you should never join a band but also why it's impossible not to. Bless them for going through it so the rest of us mere mortals can enjoy the greatness that is The Fall. --Jim Glennie

An honest, disturbing and at times hilarious look into the inner workings of a groundbreaking band. Steve, the silent, stoic, dependable beating heart and engine room of the band was my rock for all the years I played in The Fall, but I never knew what he was thinking. This book is such a gift for me. - Brix Smith Start Steve Hanley's book will of course be an essential read for fans of The Fall. But anyone would be taken in by the way it gives you a totally different take on the rock and roll experience. It's a voyage of self-discovery, but it doesn't read as some forced feel-my-pain-confessional or rock biog cliche. Steve is calm, free of hysteria, and avoids self-conscious literary flourishes in favour of the kind of measured, effortless sounding tone that actually takes a lot of thought and effort to achieve. --Stewart Lee

Steve Hanley is a legendary bass player best known for his time with iconic Manchester band The Fall, a band he was recruited into at the age of nineteen. His distinctive and original sound has seen him acknowledged as one of Britain's foremost bassists. Olivia Piekarski is a writer with a passion for contemporary fiction and music. She has worked abroad and in the UK as a teacher, an actor and in radio. She lives in Manchester with her two children.