cover image Road Pirates: Photographs

Road Pirates: Photographs

Marc Hauser. Chicago Review Press, $24.95 (140pp) ISBN 978-1-55652-136-2

This curious volume chronicles America's motorcycle subculture by combining lackluster pseudo-Avedon portraits by Hauser ( Halloween in Bucktown ) with outrageous statements by the bikers themselves on the virtues of a ``Harley'' way of life. Subjects include the exhilaration provided by the freedom of the road, the empowerment garnered by traveling in groups and the ego sustenance supplied by biker women, or ``bitches'' as they are affectionately known. After we are told by Robb that ``When you're a biker you're a member of a large family,'' we learn numerous details about the lives of various bikers. Most provocatively, there are tips for biker women under the heading, ``On Being a Good Bitch.'' The bikers also state that they reject the negative labels--like ``trash'' and ``tramp''--that have been thrown at them since the sixties. One biker has this to say: ital in text/pk ``You don't have to be black to be a nigger . . . . People see the black leather and T-shirt and they hassle me. They don't even know what I do or what I have.'' Overall, the book's narrow presentation fails to shed any new light on this very distinctive social group. Robb is a freelance writer and photographer. (July)