As esteemed rock journo Mick Wall writes in his introduction, Don Henley hates books about his band, Eagles (there is technically no definite article in the group’s name—so you’ve been saying it wrong all these years. See also: Talking Heads).

He didn’t like Marc Eliot’s 2004 bio To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles, even though he agreed to sit down for interviews with the author. But only if he would (as Wall writes) not include some info about a party at Henley’s house, a 16-year-old girl, and a drug overdose. And he really didn’t like former bandmate Don Felder’s 2009’s tell-all Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles since Felder’s firing led to a string of lawsuits and verbal battles.

Well, Gilmer, Texas’ most famous son will get the trifecta, because he really, really probably won’t like Wall’s Life in the Fast Lane: The Eagles’ Reckless Ride Down the Rock & Roll Highway (304 pp., $18.99, Diversion Books).

Right away, Wall—who has also penned more straight-ahead bios on Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Black Sabbath, and Jimi Hendrix—takes a literary leap here with the book’s writing style, likely to divide his readers.

It’s far less of a string of facts and quotes as it is a long, colorfully and informally written, stream-of-consciousness narrative with decidedly subjective (and descriptive) third person observations. In the parlance of an earlier decade, Wall lets it all hang out, damn the consequences, sensitive feelings, and parsed words.

While Eagles (especially in the early days) were known for there close, tight harmonies, those vocal characteristics rarely bled over into band relations.

While it’s never been a secret (and the pair themselves have never indicated otherwise) that group was run with no peaceful, easy feelings by Don Henley and Glenn Frey in most musical, business, and personnel matters. Wall digs a bit deeper into the relationship. They needed each other. But boy, did they have vicious arguments too.

He shows how the quiet, cunning, cutting Texan with that voice and brash, cocky, and loudmouth son of the Detroit area were each other’s ying and yang with the single-minded and ambitious pursuit of fame, money, drugs and women (not necessarily in that order).

Sure, Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner, Felder, Joe Walsh, and Timothy B. Schmit were on the boat to the Sea of Success—but none of them ever sat in the two-seated captain’s chair, ever.

Throughout, Wall introduces a bevy of players who orbited in and around the band’s universe. From fellow performers and collaborators (Linda Ronstadt, J.D. Souther, Jackson Browne), “elder” statemen (Gram Parsons, Chris Hillman, Richie Furay), and cutthroat managers/agents (Irving Azoff, David Geffen, Elliot Roberts), they all add a few strokes to the band chiaroscuro.

Wall also alters some of our collective (if not entirely accurate) memories. Remember, Desperado, their second LP, was a concept album purportedly linking the “outlaw” image of murderous Old West gangs of the 1870s with the rock groups of the 1970s. And it was a big flop. The band’s version of the title track only gained traction in the wake of Ronstadt’s cover, and “Tequila Sunrise” never scratched the Top 40.

And while Eagles definitely didn’t “invent” country rock, until they became more of a rock band they took it the furthest: to the radio stations, the turntables, the concert halls and the bank

Wall also charts the band’s (mostly Frey and Henley’s) evolution from scruffy, scuffling, country-friend pot-and-beer users to the mega-successful cocaine-snorting luxury jet-flying millionaires and King Dicks to the Classic Rock elder statesmen now (or what’s left of them) on the purported “real” farewell tour, belting out precious memories nightly at ticket prices that would bulge the eyes of the same players 50 years ago.

More pages are naturally centered on 1976’s Hotel California, the band’s enduring and telling sonic statement. The book’s main text ends with the band’s dissolution on the last date of 1980’s The Long Run tour, site of the famous fistfight between Felder and Frey (though he does bring Eageland News over the ensuing decades up to date).

The book was published before the summer 2023 death of founding bassist/singer Randy Meisner, and here he’s characterized as almost the Doomed Eagle. Too nice, passive, and silent for such a cutthroat group of type A personalities (though replaced—as he was in Poco—by the somewhat similar in tone Timothy B. Schmit).

Wall’s descriptions of loose cannon/wild man Joe Walsh and the jolt he added to the group are entertaining. And Bernie Leadon’s image is only burnished by his steadfastness and dedication to music. Even if the security guards that followed his girlfriend, Patti Davis (daughter of then-California governor Ronald Reagan) on the road were a drag on the non-stop party.

At the end, Wall is witness to a 2022 Eagles show at Hyde Park. His more reflective prose of the event is a combination of snark, wistfulness, disdain, and familiarity, and what’s-been-lost all together. Some of the reflections aren’t quite fair, but they’re not wrong either.

Life in the Fast Lane is not the definitive Eagles bio yet to be written. But it is the most entertaining, full of attitude, and rollicking on any feathered friend’s reading list.

This article originally appeared at HoustonPress.com