The Authorized Roy Orbison

In my humble opinion this biography did not live up to its promise. It was more perfunctory than intimate, a once-over-lightly that could have been so much more given its authors. We are provided with a pretty thorough rundown of dates, events and record releases, but we are never really admitted to Roy's inner world, except for the glimpses obtained when he (or in some cases his friends and collaborators) are quoted directly. The book barely touches the terrible events which shaped Roy's life as much as his music: the deaths of his first wife and, later, his sons. The later death of his brother gets barely more than a sentence. We hear more of his reaction to Elvis's passing than Claudette's, or the boys. Overall the book entirely lacks the kind of detail that devoted Orbison fans would like to sink their teeth into and that they might have hoped for from his sons.

Other than clearing up my mental Roy Orbison timeline somewhat, I didn't feel I'd really learned anything significant and new about him by the time I got to the end. A few factoids maybe. In contrast, I found the documentary the Orbi-Sons made (Mystery Girl Unraveled) far more intimate, revealing, and moving.

The boys redeem their effort to a certain extent by the inclusion of a wondrous number of fabulous photographs, many never previously published. These, in my opinion, lift the book from 3 stars to 4, although if Goodreads allowed half-stars that would probably have been from 2.5 to 3.5 stars.