Dead Biographer McNally's Cultural History

Michael Dougan writes in "Bohemian Rhapsody" in today's San Francisco Chronicle:

Maybe nabbing a doctorate in American history doesn't sound like the logical route to life as a professional Dead Head. For Dennis McNally, it did the trick.

Back in 1972, McNally interrupted work on his doctoral thesis—a biography of Beat novelist Jack Kerouac—to attend his first Grateful Dead concert. A few years later, Jerry Garcia—the Dead's lead guitarist and emblematic persona—read McNally's thesis (published as a book called "Desolate Angel") and invited the author to become the band's official biographer.

"What I wanted to do was a two-volume history of, for want of a better term, bohemia in America" using Keroac and the Dead as metaphors, McNally, 52, said last week from his Mission District home. With today's release of "A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead," McNally's project is finally complete.

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