“Freedom in the Realms of Eccentricity,” Garrett’s review of Lance Olsen’s recently published novel about the final month’s of David Bowie’s life Always Crashing in the Same Car was published today at The Collidescope.
The last eighteen months of David Bowie’s life were an enigma to his fans, his death and hidden diagnosis coming to us just as shockingly as they did to his closest friends, family, and collaborators. As he was aware of his terminal end, he continued to quietly work on his swan songs, “Blackstar” and “Lazarus”. Lance Olsen’s Always Crashing in the Same Car (FC2, 2023) is a fictional exploration of Bowie’s consciousness and interactions in his final months. It’s a reflecting collage of narrators, including our main narrator Alec Nolans, Bowie’s lovers Angie Barnett and Iman, fans, and others.
There is no denying that Olsen has his finger directly on the pulse of what made Bowie and his persona so insatiably magnetic. Here, he massages and magnifies the undercurrent of the fully-aware mortality Bowie carried throughout his life, embodying the essence of Walter Tevis’ Thomas Newton (or The Thin White Duke), Ziggy Stardust, and Major Tom. These characters are present in the confounding final days. Bowie is the person who is not quite entirely here, or is all things here at once, or has difficulty being anything here at all with the way most of us operate…
Garrett Zecker 