The Bikeriders

Photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon inherited the spirit of rebellion and resistance from his mother, who regaled him with heroic tales of her brothers’ fearless crusade against the Tsar in the Russian and Bolshevik Revolutions of the early 20th century. As a young boy growing up in Queens, New York, Lyon would lie in bed at night and dream of seeing the world – never knowing his destiny was inextricably bound to history, art, and film.

The Bikeriders chronicled the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club between 1963 and 1987, a Hells Angels-style biker gang that Lyon joined in 1966. In his hands the photography book took on diarist qualities, the hand of the artist making itself felt as would a poet, painter, or composer.

Now 82, Lyon charts his extraordinary journey in the new book, This is My Life I’m Talking About, a picaresque memoir that reveals his natural gifts for storytelling.