Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

greatness both in and out of print. Too many,
perhaps, which was one reason for my initial
reluctance. A few of them are excellent, such as
David Buckley’s 2001 release Strange Fascination.
I have had several e-mail conversations with
Buckley, who was very gracious and encouraging.
There is the stand-alone work Alias David Bowie,
written by Peter and Leni Gillman. It is the most
meticulously researched and fastidiously rendered
Bowie book ever written; it is invaluable to any
Bowie-ist and certainly anyone hoping to write a
book on the subject themselves—even if, unlike
Buckley’s, it has not been updated since its
publication in 1986. Later, I also communicated
with the Gillmans, and they too shared advice,
empathy and sometimes sympathy. Their book
and the vintage oral history In Other Words …
David Bowie, culled from a series of Capital Radio
interviews by Kerry Juby, provided invaluable
source material when it came to subjects who are
now deceased, unwilling to speak or otherwise
untraceable. Bowie’s autobiography, purportedly
entitled The Return of the Thin White Duke (after the
opening lyric to the 1976 song “Station to Station”)
has been rumored for years as well, but either the
asking price is too high or it’s a bluff; or it’s really in
the works, and like Bob Dylan’s Chronicles volume
one, it will arrive when it’s the right time. Whichever
the case may be, it is not here, and short of the text
that accompanies Mick Rock’s captivating but
exclusively glitter-focused Moonage Daydream