Season of the Witch

1979.Months of industrial action throughout the winter have left the dead unburied and mountains of rubbish piling up in the streets.After ten brutal homicides and the biggest police hunt in history, the Yorkshire Ripper is still at large and preparing to strike again.Punk has reached its bleak climax with the fatal heroin overdose of Sid Vicious while awaiting trial for the murder of his girlfriend.Unlikely alliances of outsiders prepare to seize power, set the political agenda and write the soundtrack for the years to come. Their figureheads are two very different kinds of dominatrices...As Margaret Thatcher enters 10 Downing Street, a handful of bands born of punk - Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and the Cure - find a way to distil the dissonance and darkness of the shifting decade into a new form of music. Pushing at the taboos the Sex Pistols had unlocked and dancing with the fetishistic, all will become global stars of goth.By the time Thatcher is cast out of office in 1990, the arrival of goth will have imprinted on the cultural landscape as much as the Iron Lady herself.Now, forty years since its inception, author Cathi Unsworth provides the first comprehensive overview of the music, context and lasting legacy of goth. This is the story of how goth was shaped by the politics of the era - from the miners' strikes and privatisation to the Troubles and AIDS ­­- as well as how its rock 'n' roll outlaw imagery and innovative, atmospheric music cross-pollinated throughout Britain and internationally, speaking to a generation of alienated youths.A fascinating social history, Season of the Witch tells the tale of an enduring counter-culture, one that steadfastly refuses to give up the ghost.

'A FREAKING MASTERPIECE!', 'Cathi Unsworth not only succeeds in conjuring her personal history and dark tastes into a book of immense and lucid insight, but in doing so has crafted a rich reflection on the signs and sigils of the times, taking in - as well as using - associated cultural ritual and alchemy, featuring a cast of the lost, the damned, the beautiful and the bizarre; the possessed and dispossessed. All with the best possible sense of glacial cool.', ''Season Of The Witch' is to Goth what Jon Savage's 'England's Dreaming' was to Punk... a magnificent, wild dissection of the music, the madness, and social dysfunction of the era that spawned it. Hail Unsworth.', 'Drawing on both her novelistic skills as well as her years as a music journalist, Unsworth's account of Goth and its origins is rich and absorbing, establishing its political and historical context (with Margaret Thatcher as the most infamous dominatrix of all). She shows that the dark matter of Goth amounts to more than mere Addams family cosplay but has deep cultural roots in literature and cinema, as well as magnificent precursors such as The Doors, Nico, Suicide, David Bowie, who helped breed giants such as Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Cure, Joy Division and Magazine.', 'CREATURES, FIENDS, FRIENDS OF THE NIGHT AND OF THE NORTH, ACCEPT NO ALTERNATIVES: THIS IS THE BOOK WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR OUR WHOLE REAL, TRUE GOTH LIVES.'

Cathi Unsworth began her career on the legendary music weekly Sounds at the age of nineteen, where she topped a poll to be named the Sounds journalist readers would most like to go for a drink with. Her popularity was down to her identification with gothic music.Cathi's previous book, Defying Gravity, the life and times of punk icon Jordan, was described by Julie Burchill as 'the only book about punk you'll ever need' and was chosen as 'Book of the Year' by Rough Trade, Uncut and the Daily Telegraph in 2019. She has also written six pop-culture-laced noir novels and her short-form work has appeared in The Guardian, the Financial Times, Bizarre, Melody Maker, Mojo and Uncut. She has appeared on TV and radio, given talks, organised walks and hosted events too numerous to mention.