Room 100: Sid, Nancy, and the Night Punk Rock Died

True crime writer Pollack (The Acid King) delves into the 1978 murder of Nancy Spungen, the American girlfriend of British punk rocker Sid Vicious, erstwhile bassist for the Sex Pistols. She was found stabbed to death in the couple’s room in New York’s Chelsea Hotel. Her murder and the subsequent arrest, release, and overdose death of Vicious several months later stalled further police investigation. It also launched a cottage industry of “whodunit” books, documentaries, and a 1986 film that romanticized the couple. Pollack doesn’t do that, nor does he glamorize the drug-fueled, misogynistic New York punk scene. He lets those who were there set the stage. (The viewpoints of the many people who have since died or disappeared are taken from contemporaneous interviews.) One person says Vicious was a gentle soul who couldn’t possibly have killed his true love; another tells of his violent temper and mutually destructive relationship with Spungen. Pollack mainly stands aside and lets the contradictory accounts ricochet around one another, occasionally poking holes in their stories and pointing out discrepancies.