Ebury Spotlight to publish the 'Godfather of Shock Rock' Alice Cooper’s memoir

Ebury Spotlight has acquired Alice Cooper’s "definitive" autobiography.

Publishing director Charlotte Hardman pre-empted UK & Commonwealth rights from Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown. It will be published in hardback, e-book and audiobook on 8th October 2026.

"In the Sixties and early Seventies, Alice Cooper was simply a rock group, but as their lead singer, Vincent Damon Furnier, developed his modern-day Grand Guignol character, Alice Cooper became his stage name," the synopsis says. "Then, on a wave of global success, he legally changed it to his own. As his story will tell, the two Alices became schizophrenically, almost fatally intertwined; after a harrowing journey to Hell and back, there are today two very different Alice Coopers – the deeply religious sober man behind the mask and the Godfather of Shock Rock who wears a snake around his neck."

The blurb adds: "With a career spanning six decades, Alice’s story features witty, intimate anecdotes featuring Salvador Dalí, Bob Hope, John Lennon, Groucho Marx, Vincent Price, Frank Sinatra, Erroll Flynn, Bette Davis, Jim Hendrix, Gerald Ford, Andy Warhol and Tiger Woods, to name a few, but he’s also an acute observer of dysfunction and despair, wildness and criminality, urges and addictions, transgressions and human goodness. And so he tells his story from both perspectives: angel on one shoulder, Devil on the other."

Cooper will be in the UK on publication for media and an extensive eigh-date book tour. "I’ve written this book to track Alice’s ’evilution’, and how I’ve tamed him at last," he said. "Just as he and I became almost fatally intertwined, the story of Alice Cooper after more than 30 records and 60-plus years has become a tangle of embellishments, elaborations and outright fabrications, and I think it’s time to sort reality from myth."

Hardman added: "We are delighted to be publishing Alice Cooper’s autobiography – and, as a music icon with a career spanning six decades, what a remarkable life story it is. In this brilliantly written and vividly told memoir he is incredibly honest about the push and pull of the two sides to his life. This is Alice Cooper as his fans have never heard him speak before."