Plenty of stories have come out of punk rock throughout the years, but none have received the attention that the story of Sid and Nancy has. Sometimes dubbed punk rock’s Romeo and Juliet, their relationship is often shown as turbulent as the scene it came from. Most famously depicted in Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy, the film gives a hyperbolized overview of the tumultuous couple and the uproar it caused with the Sex Pistols‘ accelerated disintegration. Jesse P. Pollack’s book Room 100: Sid, Nancy, and the Night Punk Rock Died, does its best to set the stage for the story of the first rock star convicted of murder.
While there have been documentaries, dramatizations, and true crime TV shows about the night of Nancy Spungen’s death and Sid’s subsequent overdose, they have felt very scant. This book doesn’t speak in facts as much as it does witness accounts. Pollack’s chapters focus on one aspect of the killing and then stack up witness accounts next to each other. Everyone gives their side of the story; Pollack leaves in the contradictions and differences between each interviewee, even putting their direct responses together.
There is a short prologue describing the Sex Pistols’ on-stage implosion at their last gig in San Francisco. From there, it alternates chapters, back and forth between Nancy’s murder and the histories of Sid and Nancy. As with most true crime books, it is padded with short biographies of some of those involved, starting with Sid Vicious’s mother, but it doesn’t overdo it. These parts are succinct enough to avoid sounding like a textbook.
We learn about the understandably rough pasts of our subjects and get the history of the Sex Pistols, from Sid’s entry into the band through everything leading back to the prologue and their ill-fated twelve days on the road in the US, as well as the aftermath and the four months between Nancy’s and Sid’s deaths. If you thought the story was straightforward, Pollack’s book presents enough evidence to show there is much more to it.
My one complaint, and this is more of the true crime genre than Pollack’s book, is that there are photos for reference, including crime scene photos and photos of other suspects. It does that thing that true crime books do, placing all the pictures in the middle of the book, leaving the context for only half the pictures you have read about.
While my younger self loved the raw emotion of Cox’s telling Sid and Nancy, my older self has settled into detective and true crime stories and finds these details of the story more interesting now. It is a true crime book, full of dense retellings pieced together by evidence and small print. It’s not exactly a tough read, but the amount of information sometimes thrown at you regarding the case can be overwhelming. It was smart of Pollack to break up the chapters the way he did. Pollack pulls on the strings with the possibility of other suspects.
I know many of these things are cornerstones of true crime novels, but Pollack’s presentation of Nancy’s killing has more twists and turns than you would expect. If you thought Kurt Cobain’s death warranted an investigation, Nancy’s has just as many unanswered questions. Jesse P. Pollack spent six years going through mountains of evidence and transcripts, and the work has paid off. Room 100: Sid, Nancy, and the Night Punk Rock Died walks the line between true crime and rock history book seamlessly. The book is available here for purchase.
