Last Rites
★★★★
Ozzy Osbourne
SPHERE/LITTLE BROWN. £25
Unintentional posthumous memoir from rock’s national treasure.
Chris Walter/WireImage/Getty
Last Rites has an unplanned, unhappy ending following Ozzy Osbourne’s death in July. Before then, Osbourne and his co-writer, Chris Ayres, updated the story and revisited episodes from their earlier collaboration, 2010’s I Am Ozzy, but through the prism of its older, marginally wiser, and, frankly, battered and bruised subject. The past 25 years were challenging for Ozzy, whose health issues (Parkinson’s, spinal surgery) and addictions (sex, Yorkshire Tea, Montecristo cigars) are addressed in unflinching detail. We hear how AC/DC’s Angus Young always reminded him of veteran school-uniformed comic Jimmy Clitheroe; how War Pigs’ original lyric was “Satan looking for his sinners after eating bad school dinners” and how Virgin boss Richard Branson’s houseboat was “a rinky dink piece of shit”. Ozzy’s self-awareness, raucous humour, and bemusement at a career he calls “a clever accident” carry the reader through to Last Rites’ poignant final curtain call.