A Cactus in a Dead Land uncovers the forgotten story of a German fan buried 17 gravestones from Ian Curtis. The author will launch it at Proper Sound with a Joy Division conversation, on the day the stage play New Dawn Fades returns to Macclesfield.
MACCLESFIELD, UK, 22 October 2026.
Every year, people travel from all over the world to a small cemetery in Macclesfield. They leave flowers, letters, photographs, cigarettes and, sometimes… cacti!
Forty-six years after the death of Joy Division’s singer, Ian Curtis, they are still coming.
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.), the new book by Italian writer and researcher Simone Puorto, asks why.
It is out now in Kindle, paperback and hardcover, and will be launched officially in Macclesfield on Monday 26 October 2026 at 5pm at Proper Sound.
Entry is free and everyone is welcome.
Read the first 40 pages free!
Get a first look at the stories, people and places behind the enduring legacy of Ian Curtis and Joy Division: download the preview (PDF).
Buy the book:
Amazon UK · Amazon EU
A launch in Ian Curtis’s hometown
The launch is a book presentation and Joy Division conversation, with an informal panel discussion followed by a Q&A with the audience. Simone Puorto will be joined by four of the book’s contributors and by the owner of the venue:
- Brian Gorman, writer, artist, actor, and author of New Dawn Fades: A Play About Joy Division and Manchester
- Nigel Carr, music journalist and co-producer of New Dawn Fades
- Ben Walker, painter, whose artwork Hollows of Devotion is the book’s cover
- Chris Connelly, music writer and author of Cargo Recording Studios 1977–1985
- Lucie Wright, founder of Proper Sound
The conversation will be moderated by Victoria Middles, wife of music journalist and author Mick Middles.
Gorman’s New Dawn Fades: A Play About Joy Division and Manchester is a stage play that follows Joy Division from Manchester’s post-punk scene to Ian Curtis’s death and the band’s rebirth as New Order. It returns to Cinemac in Macclesfield on the evening of the launch, and Proper Sound is marking the occasion with three days of Joy Division events. Several members of the production, including Gorman, Carr and lead actor Josh Lonsdale, who plays Ian Curtis, contributed to the book. Upcoming shows here: https://newdawnfades.co.uk
A Joy Division Quiz runs at Proper Sound at 3pm on 26, 27 and 28 October. Paper quiz sheets are available throughout the day, so visitors can join in later, and prizes include signed books and artwork.
Not another Joy Division biography
A Cactus in a Dead Land is not another life of Ian Curtis. It looks instead at the people who still make the journey, and at the streets, record shops, walls and gravestones that have become places of pilgrimage.
“Most of what has been written focuses on Curtis himself: who he was, his struggles, his illness, his relationships and what his lyrics meant,”
says Puorto.
“Far less has been written about the other side of that relationship: the fans who nevertheless continue to feel connected to him decades later.”
Drawing on music history, tourism research, collective memory, philosophy and the anthropology of ritual, the book follows the small gestures through which people keep Curtis’s memory alive, from paintings and plays to the cactus Peter Hook once left at his friend’s memorial, which gives the book its title. It ends on a surprisingly hopeful note, suggesting that we may have spent too long on the “Division” in Joy Division and not enough on the “Joy”.
The forgotten story of Cornelia F.
At the heart of the book is the largely forgotten story of Cornelia F., a German Joy Division fan buried just 17 gravestones from Ian Curtis in Macclesfield Cemetery. For decades her story survived only in fragments and contradictory accounts. Through archival research, correspondence and first-hand testimony, Puorto reconstructs what can be established about her life, including details that, to his knowledge, have never appeared in print before, and treats her not as a footnote to the Curtis myth but as a person in her own right.
The book also includes a photograph believed to show Ian Curtis that may never have been published before. It was recovered from a weather-damaged card left at his memorial and restored for the book.
Sixteen voices
The 296-page illustrated volume brings together 16 contributors from music, photography, literature, theatre and cultural history. It opens with a foreword by Belgian photographer Philippe Carly, whose photograph of Curtis at Plan K in Brussels inspired Manchester’s Ian Curtis mural, and closes with an afterword by cultural historian Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, author of You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone. Other contributors include Josh Lonsdale, Katja Ruge, Trevor Stokes and Jean-Noël Bouet. Some saw Joy Division perform live; others have spent decades documenting the band and preserving its legacy.
All profits after expenses will be donated to charity, with mental health and suicide prevention organisations currently under consideration.
Praise for A Cactus in a Dead Land
“It is easy to assume that a book about a singer and a band whose brief existence ended decades ago must be driven by nostalgia or personal fascination. Puorto’s tireless work falls into neither category. Sociology, history, cultural studies and psychology all play a part in this examination of what it means to understand an individual, his art, his relationships and his environment. A thorough piece of work that deserves to be read more than once.”
Kevin May, therapist, former journalist and co-author of Halo: The Story Behind Depeche Mode’s Classic Album Violator
“This book is part topographical rhabdomancy, part philosophical essay and part oral history of the enigma we call Joy Division. It follows pilgrimage routes extending from a small gravestone in Macclesfield into the surrounding landscape of North West England, engages in critical readings of memory, sound and rituality, and presents vibrant exchanges with people who were there. What a band, and what a legacy!”
Giacomo Bottà, author of Trying to Find a Clue, Trying to Find a Way to Get Out! The European Imaginary of Joy Division
Event details
What: A Cactus in a Dead Land: book launch and Joy Division conversation, with audience Q&A
When: Monday 26 October 2026, 5pm
Where: Proper Sound, 8 Chestergate, The Grosvenor Shopping Centre, Macclesfield SK11 6BA (propersound.uk)
Also: Joy Division Quiz, 3pm daily on 26, 27 and 28 October, at Proper Sound
Admission: Free, all welcome
Book information
- Title: 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.)
- Author: Simone Puorto
- Foreword: Philippe Carly · Afterword: Jennifer Otter Bickerdike
- Cover artwork: Hollows of Devotion, Ben Walker
- Design and layout: Paolo Di Orazio
- Length: 296 pages, illustrated · Language: English
- Formats and prices: paperback £10, hardcover £15, Kindle
- Paperback ISBN: 979-8-1936950-2-8
- Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HLRGP48R/
- Amazon EU: https://amzn.eu/d/01p7S0CH
- Free 40-page preview (PDF): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VtUy5iiNW9biCydiSNau19azs7OlGwYQ/view
About the author
Simone Puorto is an Italian writer, researcher and techno-philosopher with more than 25 years of experience in travel, hospitality and cultural research. He is Head of Emerging Trends & Strategic Innovation at Hospitality Net, has written five bestselling books and more than 300 articles, and lectures in MBA and executive education programmes at institutions including EHL Hospitality Business School and Les Roches. His research covers dark tourism, music tourism and cultural memory. A Joy Division listener for more than three decades, he co-sponsored the 2024 fundraising event at Manchester’s Star and Garter celebrating the restoration of the Ian Curtis mural. Website: https://simonepuorto.com
Interviews and media materials
Simone Puorto is in Manchester and Macclesfield from 24 to 27 October and is available for interviews in person or remotely. Journalists are warmly invited to attend the launch at Proper Sound. Review copies, extracts, high-resolution cover artwork, author photographs and event materials are available on request.
Media contact
Simone Puorto
[email protected]
+39 375 634 3456
