A Long Strange Trip:
The History of the Grateful Dead
by Dennis McNally
Here are what others have to say.
The Washington Post's review
of A Long Strange Trip: A History of the Grateful Dead. ...
and from the San
Fransisco Chronicle.
From the
Back Cover
“If you want to know what happened, why it
happened, how it happened, and what it was like in the Grateful
Dead, A Long Strange Trip is for you. No other book on us
comes close to it.” –Bob Weir
“Was it important to history? I’m not sure. Was it
important to life? I know it was. A great read for those needing to
know what happened between the cracks. . . .” –Bill Kreutzmann
“McNally has presented an evenhanded treatment of what is
arguably the most complex and multifaceted phenomenon in the history
of American music. I highly recommend it to anyone who really wants
to know what we are all about.” –Owsley “Bear” Stanley
“It’s a simple tale, really. A band of misfit guys fall in
love, stumble blindly onward and defy gravity, then try to kiss the
face of God! This truth is better than fiction. I hope you all enjoy
this odyssey as much as I have.” –Mickey Hart
“Dennis McNally knows the Grateful Dead as intimately as they
know themselves. His historian’s eye, his immersion as a Dead ‘family
member,’ and his crazed hippie heart have made this the book to
read about the life, times, and twisted, double-helix road of the
band’s evolution. It’s a great read.” –Peter Coyote
“As I read Dennis’s book, I knew he is the one person who
could tell the history of the Dead, and why this band survived as it
attracted everyone from the so-called hippie generation to those of
us firmly in the establishment. It is a well-written and valuable
history.” –Senator Patrick J. Leahy
“No novelist, sane or otherwise, could have invented the
ethereal saga of the Grateful Dead. Dennis McNally’s backstage
portrait of the world’s most liberated rock band is full of
unforgettable images, wild and funny and fascinating.” –Carl
Hiaasen
“The Dead has been an inspiring source of light for countless
people. Dennis McNally’s riveting tale of the longest strangest
trip will take you on a high-altitude training course and leave you
prepared for the next lightning bolt of social and spiritual
revelation.” –Bill Walton
“This is McNally’s view of what went down. It’s more often
right than wrong and done with love, not a grudge, which goes a long
way toward excusing another damned book about the Grateful Dead. Any
view of us is necessarily a limited interpretation, like an aerial
photo of Ground Zero. What Dennis loves and hates about us bears
more weight than most interpretations because he took twenty years
to get his facts straight. I’ll miss him when we kill him.” –Robert
Hunter
About the Author
DENNIS MCNALLY graduated from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New
York, and received a Ph.D. in American history from the University
of Massachusetts. After being selected as the Grateful Dead’s
official historian in 1980, he assumed the band’s publicity duties
in 1984 and has been running that post ever since. He is the author
of one previous book, Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat
Generation, and America. He lives with his wife in San Francisco.