Icy reviews for music legend’s ‘giggling snowball’

STEVEN Patrick Morrissey is a legend of indie rock. But the British singer’s attempt at erotic literature has seen his reputation droop and shrink.

The former Smiths frontman is the hot favourite to win this year’s Bad Sex Award, presented by the Literary Review to writers guilty of excruciating descriptions of sex in fiction.

Morrissey’s debut novel, The List of the Lost, about a cursed ’70s relay team, has been shredded by critics. But one sex scene has attracted special ridicule, and edged him ahead of Erica Jong and Aleksandar Hemon in the purple-hued race for the most unwanted prize in books.

Sensitive readers should move briskly past this shortlisted extract from Morrissey’s tale: “At this, Eliza and Ezra rolled together into the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it whacked and smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.”

The Mancunian star is unbowed by the reviews, and there is no truth to the rumour that he will respond by re-releasing a single with the adjusted title: Heaven Knows I’m Risible Now.

Among the other shortlisted extracts is this from The Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen: “Her mouth was intensely ovoid, an almond mouth, of citrus crescents. And under that sling, her breasts were like young fawns, sheep frolicking in hyssop — Psalms were about to pour out of me.”

The winning crime against taste will be announced on December 2.