Joy Division book ‘A Cactus in a Dead Land’ launches in Macclesfield
Simone Puorto launches his book “A Cactus in a Dead Land” on Ian Curtis and Joy Division on 26 October 2026 at Proper Sound in Macclesfield.
Italian author Simone Puorto launches his book, “A Cactus in a Dead Land: Pilgrimage and Ritual in the Cultural Afterlife of Ian Curtis and Joy Division (and the Forgotten Story of Cornelia F.)”, on 26 October 2026 at Proper Sound in Macclesfield. The 296-page book, published 1 October 2026, examines why fans still travel to the English town where Ian Curtis is buried, and reconstructs the story of Cornelia F., a German Joy Division fan buried seventeen gravestones from Curtis in Macclesfield Cemetery.
The launch runs from 5pm at Proper Sound, 8 Chestergate, The Grosvenor Shopping Centre, Macclesfield SK11 6BA, ahead of a restaging of “New Dawn Fades,” the play about Joy Division and Manchester, at Cinemac the same evening. Admission is free. Puorto is joined on an informal panel by Nigel Carr, co-producer of “New Dawn Fades”; Ben Walker, the painter whose work “Hollows of Devotion” is the book’s cover; Chris Connelly, author of “Cargo Recording Studios 1977-1985”; Lucie Wright, founder of Proper Sound; and Brian Gorman, writer of “New Dawn Fades.” Victoria Middles, wife of music journalist and author Mick Middles, moderates. A Joy Division quiz, with signed books and artwork among the prizes, runs at Proper Sound at 3pm on 26, 27 and 28 October.
“A Cactus in a Dead Land” is not a conventional Ian Curtis biography. Puorto draws on music history, tourism research, collective memory, philosophy and the anthropology of ritual to examine the streets, record shops, walls and gravestones in Macclesfield and Manchester that have become sites of pilgrimage since Curtis died in 1980. Side-Line reported in 2015 that a wealthy fan purchased Curtis’ former home in Macclesfield with plans to turn it into a Joy Division museum.
Puorto described the book’s focus on the people around Curtis, not on the singer himself: “Most of what has been written focuses on Curtis himself,” he stated in press materials for the launch. “Far less has been written about the other side of that relationship.”
At the book’s center is Cornelia F., whose story Puorto reconstructs through archival research, correspondence and testimony. According to the book’s own account, she is buried about seventeen gravestones from Curtis’ memorial in Macclesfield, and died on 18 May 1993, thirteen years to the day after Curtis. Puorto’s publishers describe her story as resting on fragmented and sometimes contradictory recollections, and the book separates documented facts from speculation. The book also includes a photograph believed to show Curtis, recovered from a weather-damaged card left at his memorial and restored for publication.
The book carries a foreword by Philippe Carly and an afterword by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, among 16 contributors that include Josh Lonsdale, who plays Curtis in “New Dawn Fades”; photographer and curator Katja Ruge; and Chris Connelly. It is available in Kindle, paperback and hardcover editions. All profits after expenses will go to charity, with mental health and suicide prevention organisations under consideration.
About Simone Puorto
Simone Puorto is an Italian writer, researcher and techno-philosopher with more than 25 years of experience in travel, hospitality and cultural research. He holds the Head of Emerging Trends and Strategic Innovation role at Hospitality Net, has authored five books and more than 300 articles, and lectures at EHL Hospitality Business School and Les Roches. He has followed Joy Division for more than three decades and co-sponsored a 2024 fundraiser at Manchester’s Star and Garter for the restoration of the Ian Curtis mural.
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