by Alan Parker (Author)
The old school register for Soho Parish Primary school has a note in the margin recording that five-year-old John Simon Ritchie turned up for his first day at school unaccompanied in September 1962. He'd walked from his mum's council flat near Drury Lane, across Covent Garden and several major road junctions to Gt Windmill Street alone. Somehow it's a fitting start to the wild and troubled life that would be Sid Vicious's. It's also a story that's indicative of the detailed research Alan Parker has put into this biography of Sid Vicious. He spent an evening discussing young Simon Ritchie's schooldays with the headmistress of Soho Parish, has interviewed the likes of fellow Sex Pistols Paul Cook and Glen Matlock at length, as well as numerous other punk luminaries. The basics of Sid Vicious's brief 21 years are well known: art school, junkie mother, life in a squat, a year in the Sex Pistols until their demise in 1978, Nancy Spungeon's death, Sid's arrest, followed by Sid's own fatal overdose on 2 February 1979. Parker brings a wealth of new detail to the story, much gained from the New York Police Department and extensive interviews with Anne Beverley (Sid's mother), prior to her own suicide in 1996. This enables him to come to dramatic conclusions about who killed Nancy Spungeon and how Sid himself ided. This will be the definitive and final word on Sid Vicious, and the perfect tribute to a man who has become a true icon of the 21st century.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Orion
Published: 17 May 2007
ISBN 10: 0752875469
ISBN 13: 9780752875460
Book Overview: Alan Parker is the world's leading authority on Sid Vicious: members of the Sex Pistols defer to him on all matters Sid-related; Glen Matlock says, 'Alan Parker has forgotten more about Sid Vicious than I could ever tell you.' The film Sid and Nancy will be re-released on DVD on 14 May by Momentum Pictures, featuring a documentary made by Alan Parker; both EMI and Sanctuary will be releasing CDs that day to tie in with the book's publication Features exclusive/previously unseen photographs Includes a Foreword by Malcolm McLaren