Interviews March 6, 2014

“I’m mortified to be on stage,” Bob Dylan said in a 1977 interview, “But then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy. It’s the only place you can be who you want to be.” It’s from this conceit—of Dylan’s infamous reticence and the many personas he’s adopted over the years—that David Kinney founds his fascinating inquiry into the world of obsessive Bob Dylan scholars, The Dylanologists: Adventures in the Land of Bob, which comes out in May. Kinney, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, is no stranger to infiltrating obscure subcultures, as he did in The Big One: An Island,