''Working Class Man'' is the 2017

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

Jimmy Barnes James Dixon Barnes ( Swan; born 28 April 1956) is an Australian rock singer. His career, both as a solo performer and as the lead vocalist with the rock band Cold Chisel, has made him one of the most popular and best-selling Australian music a ...

, and sequel to his 2016 '' Working Class Boy''. On 3 May 2018, Barnes won the

biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curri ...

of the year at the Australian Book Industry Awards for the second year in a row.

Reception

Michael Dwyer from

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in ...

called the memoir "honest" and said "It begins exactly where last year's '' Working Class Boy'' ended: on a tenuous high note, with our hero escaping an

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

childhood of grim poverty and violent abuse in the back of

Cold Chisel Cold Chisel are an Australian Pub rock (Australia), pub rock band, which formed in Adelaide in 1973 by mainstay members Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums, Les Kaczmarek on bass and Don Walker (musician), Don Walker on pia ...

's truck." adding "For vintage Chisel fans, frank and ample disclosures about band dynamics and company business are in keeping with Barnes' hugely readable, no-bullshit style. The isolation and self-doubt of his solo years are laid bare too, as he reels from one arranged American songwriting marriage to another in a chemical-hoovering fury." David Free from

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...

said this is a sequel "in the fullest sense of the word". Free said "Read this one by itself and you will find yourself looking at a cliche: the self-destructive rock star. But the first book lets you know, in pitiless detail, exactly what the self-destroyer was out to destroy. In this respect and others, the first book shines a light into the second. The adult who behaved like a child is explained, in large part, by the child who had to behave like an adult.". John Purcell said "In ''Working Class Man'' Jimmy tells us in his famously direct and raw style, what it was really like to be in Cold Chisel, one of Australia’s most iconic bands, as well as what life was like as a record breaking solo artist. Jimmy does not flinch, he tells it as it is: the drugs, the sex, the money, the highs and the even higher highs and those heartbreaking lows. This book has already shocked early readers with its honesty. This is the real deal."

References

{{Jimmy Barnes 2017 non-fiction books Australian memoirs Books about musicians Working-class culture in the United Kingdom Working class in Australia Working-class literature HarperCollins books