And I Don't Want to Live This Life: A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder

by Deborah Spungen

Book Overview

"Honest and moving . . . Her painful tale is engrossing."- Washington Post Book World For most of us, it was just another horrible headline. But for Deborah Spungen, the mother of Nancy, who was stabbed to death at the Chelsea Hotel, it was both a relief and a tragedy. Here is the incredible story of an infant who never stopped screaming, a toddler who attacked people, a teenager addicted to drugs, violence, and easy sex, a daughter completely out...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0449911411
• ISBN13: 9780449911419
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Great Insight Into What the Media Never Told

I couldn’t put this book down. At times I felt sorry for Nancy but I also felt bad for her mother Debbie. Nancy was not an easy child but she was very smart (she had an extremely high IQ) Her mother and father tried so hard to get help for their daughter Nancy but it just wasn’t in the cards. Her life was cut short. They didn’t have the advances in mental health back then that we do today. The book made me often think that if Nancy were born in this current day and age her life would’ve probably been much different (in a good way) It’s a good read, and kept me glued to figure out what happens next all the way through the tragic end.

wonderful book

I first read this book when I was in my teens. I am now over 50 and still reread it often. It has been my favorite read from the first time I picked it up!! Well written and to the point.

excellent read. Must have for a sex pistols fan

Great book. Really let you find the person behind what Nancy became and what her family went through with her. She was a tragedy waiting to happen which finally did. Must read this book to get the real story. The media never even touched the surface.

sobering, sad

This is the "inside" story of the real-life girlfriend of musician Sid Viscious of the Sex Pistols, written by the girl's mother herself. Nancy Spungen was angry and rebellious seemingly from the day she was born-and became an angry, rebellious, drug abusing, promiscuous teenager who devasted her parents with the lifestyle she led. She eventually became the girlfriend of Sid viscious and died after being stabbed. Nancy never seemed to respond to anyone's overtures toward her and persistently pursued a downhill course of life. Mrs. Spungen has tried to understand what made Nancy tick, so to speak, theorizing that Nancy had brain damage from a difficult childbirth where Nancy lacked oxygen for a time during the difficult labor. The daugher's mental pain, and that of her mother are sad and mesmerizing and make for an unforgettable read.

How do you keep loving the lost?

Nancy was doomed from birth-or so it seems after reading her mother's devastating, pull no punches account of her deeply disturbed daughter's tragically short life. This book is just haunting. I had cousins very similar to Nancy-all from her age group and all now dead from drugs. How do you help those who refuse to be helped? How do you keep loving someone who attacks you, steals from you, abuses the family, keeps the family under a virtual living Hell-at least until they are of age and you can finally, devastatingly kick them out? And even then they still keep the family under siege-until death parts them. That was Nancy judging from her loving mother's book. That was my long dead cousins too. The title of the book comes from a poem titled "Nancy" written by none other than Sid Vicious. This long-lost young man is now in the Rock N' Roll Hall Of Fame along with the rest of the still living, and reluctant Sex Pistols all of whom refused to attend the RNRHOF Induction Ceremonies. If Nancy wanted to be remembered forever in the sphere of Rock N' Roll-for good or bad she will be. I believe The Sex Pistols will be remembered for all posterity-and Nancy will be too because of her affair with Sid. Those who continue to spit on Nancy's grave (and some even spit on Sid's memory-he was cremated) by making horrible comments about this young woman who has been dead for over 28 years and therefore not here to defend herself-those who show no regard for her family's feelings have all checked their humanity at the door. :( I highly recommend this book. This is as close to Nancy's side of the story as you are ever likely to get. The book has some surprizing insight on Sid who some believed to be mildly retarded. He was not. Judging from his letters, and poems to Nancy's mother after Nancy's death they clearly show an eloquent, intelligent and even sensitive young man who was as deeply troubled as Nancy-perhaps more so since his own mother was a heroin addict. In John Lydon's book "Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs" Sid's own school mates mention watching him shoot up speed and God knows what else-with his own mother's syringe which he sterilized himself. With a mother like he had Sid was on a difficult road in life-meeting Nancy I believe only hurried him along to his own self-destruction. And in the end he died from heroin supplied by his own mother Anne. Nancy didn't kill Sid. His mother did-or at least she helped. :(

Honest, Revealing and Frightening...

Fact-based novels don't come any more raw, honest and emotionally-charged as this one. I've read this countless times, and each time, I'm always left feeling completely drained after I finish it. The incredible pain, sadness and heartbreak that the Spungen family endured throughout Nancy's turbulent and tragic life, even continuing after her death, practically leaps from the pages and overtakes you. The public only saw one side of Nancy Spungen, the fabricated image of her that was created by sleazy tabloid reporters who traumatized and exploited the Spungen family in their time of grief and loss. It's no secret that Nancy was disturbed and a heroin addict, but what most people fail to see is that underneath it all she was a sensitive human being who unfortunately could not find peace and happiness in life. Whatever fragments of these things she found in her relationship with Sid Vicious were also short-lived, as well as for Sid himself. He, too was searching for something that was missing in his life; he found it in Nancy Spungen and they were drawn together. In nearly all of the negative reviews posted here (which all are completely undeserved), the reviewers foolishly point to Mrs. Spungen as a "whiny loser" and a "terrible parent"...did you people even READ the book before making such ridiculous comments? What would YOU have done if YOU were in her shoes? Unless you've gone through what she has, you have absolutely NO CLUE and don't know what you're talking about! Every facet of Nancy's life from begninning to end is laid painfully bare and nothing is held back; with every word, you feel Mrs. Spungen's emotions as if they were your own. Following Nancy's death, Mrs. Spungen created the Philadelphia chapter of Parents Of Murdered Children (POMC) in an effort to reach out to other parents and families whose lives were shattered by the murder of their child. Would a "whiny loser" or "terrible parent" or someone in search of personal notoriety do this? I think not. It's a labor of love from a mother whose daughter's murder remains unsolved nearly 26 years later. If Deborah Spungen is in search of anything, it's closure. I recommend this book very highly and praise Deborah Spungen equally so for her remarkable strength, courage and love.

Not an easy read, but fascinating

I bought this book because I wanted some insight into one of the most enigmatic couples in pop culture history - Sid and Nancy. While Nancy's story as told by her mother was not at all what I might have expected, it did not disappoint. Not knowing about Nancy's horrendous suffering (seemingly equal to that of her family)as baby, child and adolesecent, one would obviously think her last two frenetic years spent with Sid --ending in murder/suicide --represented the end of a tragic downward spiral of a young life. But having read the chronological saga of Nancy as told in Deborah Spungen's book, it becomes crazily apparent that the short few months in the Punk scene with Sid was the pinnacle of Nancy's miserable life, and complete with lurid aspects, without doubt the only period in which she was happy. Though Nancy's mother (who in subsequent years has gotten her Masters in Social Policy Work) seems to realize this with a singularly objective eye on one hand in her account, she raises some curious questions about her own perspective and priorities on the other. Readers looking for the skinny on Sid and Nancy will need to work their way through the painfully hair-raising episodes of Nancy's tormented babyhood, childhood and adolescence which take up 80 percent of the book. (These details may sound unbelievable to anyone who has not personally known of such a biochemically skewed child, but Nancy's story may offer interest -- though not much in the way of hope -- to parents of children with undiagnosed congenital personality disorders.) But the background, the difficult and lengthy recounting of the horrific sufferings of Nancy and her family, is essential in order to appreciate the relationship of Nancy and Sid -- one of the saddest, the bitterly sweetest, and arguably the only real love story to come out of the punk period. Some of the most revealing and poignant Sid lore available in print comes unexpectedly in Sid's own voice as quoted by Deborah. Remarkably, after being released on bond from jail after being charged with Nancy's murder, Sid called Mrs. Spungen with a heartfelt apology for not being able to attend her funeral. And what do you know, the book title "And I Don't Want to Live This Life" comes--not from Nancy's words, but Sid's--in a surprisingly well-written and juicy letter to Mrs. Spungen about his love for Nancy. Some interesting quirks exist in Mrs. Spungen's tome (one small but curious example: in the only two references made to Johnny Rotten Lydon, she calls him John "Lyman"). And other more intriguing questions could be raised about where Deborah Spungen is really coming from. In one aspect of consciousness, Deborah seems to realize that a)Sid and Nancy truly loved one another as best these two individuals could, b)Nancy's death was more suicide than murder in view of what few facts are known (for example, Nancy herself purchased the knife that killed her two days before her death), and c)Nancy was destined to die young as a