LONELY BOY: Tales From a Sex Pistol, by Steve Jones

Not Our Book!: This is a like-new, unread Hachette softcover with an anarchic marker slash on the spine. 

The best of the Sex Pistols books. Turning back the clock to the fashionable British punk outbreak of 1977, guitarist Steve Jones goes for broke in a no-“Feelings”-spared account of his life spent in debaucherous notoriety.

Illustrated 352pp trade paperback

Foreword by Chrissie Hynde

“A raw, vanity-free dive into a life marred by an abused childhood, petty crime, and addictions to drink, drugs, and sex, but rescued by Jones’s relentless aspiration for a better life.”―London Times Magazine

“A hilarious and at times harrowing read.”―MOJO

“Jones’s autobiography is anything but quaint…. His book’s title speaks volumes, although these stories are told without sadness…. Through the fame years, Lonely Boy is often eye-wateringly funny…. He’s ‘a semi-retired sexual deviant who doesn’t really act out so much any more,’ which is sensible. His book’s a delight.” ―The Guardian

“A brutally frank autobiography.”―The Mirror

“An absolute riot of revelation…The Sex Pistols guitarist details his life-an impoverished Sixties childhood, sexual abuse and dalliances with crime-in a way that is both moving and candid.”―The Telegraph, Top 50 Books of the Year

Steve Jones’s modern Dickensian tale began in the street of Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush, West London, where as a lonely, neglected boy living off his wits and petty thievery he was given purpose by the glam art rock of David Bowie and Roxy Music. He became one of the first generation of ragamuffin punks taken under the wings of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood.

In Lonely Boy, Steve describes the sadness of never having known his real dad, the abuse he suffered at the hands of his stepfather, and how his interest in music and fashion saved him from a potential life of crime spent in remand centers and prisons. He takes readers on his journey from the Kings Road of the early ’70s through the years of the Sex Pistols, punk rock, and the recording of “Anarchy in the UK” and Never Mind the Bollocks. He recounts his infamous confrontation on Bill Grundy’s Today program — the interview that ushered in the “Filth and the Fury” headlines that catapulted punk into the national consciousness. And he delves into the details of his self-imposed exile in New York and Los Angeles, where he battled alcohol, heroin, and sex addiction but eventually emerged to gain fresh acclaim as an actor and radio host.

Lonely Boy is the story of an unlikely guitar hero who, with the Sex Pistols, transformed twentieth-century culture and kick-started a social revolution.