Biographies can be curiously unfulfilling publications. This is due partly to the ultimate unknowability of another person, and partly to the motivations and circumstances that bring these life-stories into being. The biographies of Bob Dylan are thus not only reflections the artist’s own life, self-promotion, and constant reinvention, but also interpretations that have been dictated by changing fashions in journalism, celebrity reportage, and the evolving nature of media and cultural studies in modern America and, by extension, the wider world.