“Backstage Passes”By Angela Bowie with Patrick Carr...

“Backstage Passes”

By Angela Bowie with Patrick Carr

Putnam

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First there was Pamela Des Barres’ “I’m With the Band.” Now here’s “I’m With La Bowie.” As the Thin White Duke’s ex would have it, sex ruled the ‘70s, and she and her erstwhile mate ruled sex. At one point in space and time that may well have been true--the Bowies were the vanguard of liberating glitter-rock androgyny. But Angie so overstates her case that her perhaps legitimate claims to having helped Bowie invent, reinvent and re-reinvent himself collapse under her forced and often bitter prose. What’s left is pure, prurient titillation. But voyeurs beware: Even her lurid anecdotes are obscured by her hazy memory and poor-poor-pitiful-me stance.