It is perhaps fitting that Dennis McNally '71 has spent his career chronicling
the life and times of the Grateful Dead -- he earned his degree in history.
McNally, the official historian, publicist and archivist for the band for over
20 years, is the author of A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of The
Grateful Dead, "a comprehensive, colorful and complex look at the the band
and its surrounding culture." Published by Random House, it is due out August 13.
According to a recent feature story about
McNally in the Los Angeles Times, McNally became involved with the Dead while
researching his first book, Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation and
America, which was also his doctoral dissertation at the University of Massachusetts.
The publishers state, "As the Dead's publicist for more than 20 years, McNally packs
this 600-pager full of intimate details otherwise unavailable, such as the time the
group's janitor vetoed a suggestion from multimillion-dollar promoter Bill Graham as
too 'commercial'...he manages to pen the most exhaustively researched book on the
band to date."
The Times story states that McNally is now at work on a third book, tracing
the cultural journey along the Mississippi River from the source in Minnesota to
the Gulf of Mexico.