Review by Booklist Review
Her mother gave her a choice: attend secretarial school or become a hairdresser. Suzi, 15, chose the latter. One of her clients, Mrs. Jones, talks with pride about her son, David. Suzy is barely listening until the mother says that her "artistic boy" has a song in the top 10. "Really!" asks Ronson. "What was the song?" "Space Oddity," replies the mother with a smile. Then, on a Saturday in 1971, Suzi sees a man and a woman pushing a buggy, and the man is wearing a dress. "It's David Bowie," somebody whispers. So begins Suzi's association with Bowie. During a time when most rock stars wore long, flowing locks, she gives him the short, spiky red haircut haircut that appears on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. She joins him on the road throughout Britain, across America, and in Japan and meets her future husband, guitarist Mick Ronson, as well as other rock notables, such as Bob Dylan and Iggy Pop. An enjoyable insider account of Bowie's wild Spiders from Mars years.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Ronson debuts with a disjointed and superficial account of her charmed life as David Bowie's hairstylist and the wife of Spiders from Mars guitarist Mick Ronson. A hairdresser in her hometown of Bromley, England, Ronson styled hair for Bowie's wife and mother. In 1971, she was invited to Bowie's house to do his hair and dreamed up the red, spiky hairdo that hallmarked his Ziggy Stardust days. The following year, Bowie hired Ronson to join the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars tour, where she cut hair, fetched coffee and cigarettes, and witnessed up close the excesses of a rock and roll show--the band spent a quarter of a million dollars on the tour's American leg and was pursued by shrieking groupies Ronson was expected to wrangle ("My new job: tour madam"). Meanwhile, her attraction to Mick Ronson, "a god on guitar," grew, and the couple's courtship took off as he released a solo album and did stints with Mott the Hoople and Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. While the author's behind-the-scenes observations hold some unvarnished appeal ("The interaction between the two of them is electrifying, so rare and sexy," she writes of Bowie's and Ronson's onstage dynamic), more often her reflections drown in tiresome clichés ("inside I'm bubbling up like a champagne bottle about to burst its cork"). This misses the mark. (Apr.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
To the teenage fans who adopted his iconic look in the early 1970s, David Bowie, particularly his Ziggy Stardust persona, may well have seemed to arrive from outer space to bestow his innovative genius upon humankind, in accordance with the mythology he created. But that persona was assembled out of earthly components, by a human stylist, Ronson. This memoir shows how Ronson used enthusiasm, quick thinking, and luck to parlay a chance meeting with Bowie's mother, Peggy Jones, in the early '70s into a significant role in crafting and presenting Ziggy Stardust's style to the world. It's a rock and roll life as dizzyingly magical and chaotic as one would imagine. It's also abundantly clear that it wouldn't last forever. Throughout this book, Ronson shows that she is aware that thousands, perhaps millions of young people, have longed to live the life that she led. But her depictions of returning home from tours across the United States and Europe are some of the most poignant parts of the story. VERDICT There's little new here about Bowie, but this is an appealing look into a legendary era of rock. For Bowie fans and completist collections.--Genevieve Williams
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A memoir from the stylist who created David Bowie's iconic Ziggy Stardust look. "I was plucked from a suburban hairdressing salon, whipped up in the frenzy of Ziggy Stardust," writes Ronson, and wound up "marrying the man of my dreams," Mick Ronson, Bowie's guitarist. The author had left school at 15 and trained to be a hairdresser in Bromley, where her client Mrs. Jones boasted, "My David is such an artistic boy." Ronson met Angie and David Bowie, who wanted her to give him a short, spiky haircut, a women's hairstyle. From there, she was invited to join Bowie and the Spiders From Mars on tour, helping with costumes and hair. In this glam-rock era, makeup for the boys was mascara, gold and silver eyeshadow, and glitter. Using diaries she kept on the road, Ronson recounts her experiences as the only working woman in Bowie's touring party. "Onstage, Mick's masculine sex appeal plays off against David's femininity," she writes. "It's thrilling, irreverent, and oh-so appealing." Throughout, the author captures the exciting adventures of pop stardom. "My life was all black and white until I met David," she writes, "and afterwards it was glorious technicolour, as bright as the hair on his head." On the flip side, she notes "how ruthless David [could] be," casting off the Spiders for a solo career. Bowie blamed both his Ziggy character and cocaine for his callous disregard of his bandmates, but, Ronson insists, "It was raw, naked ambition." The final 100 pages of the book follow the author's life on tour and in domestic harmony with Mick, making the book's title something of a misnomer. One particularly intriguing moment involves the Ronsons attending a Sex Pistols concert and realizing that rock music had moved on: "I feel as old as my mum!" An entertaining glam-rock portrait that loses some verve toward the end. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
