01
THE MUSICAL
It's 1973. Roe v. Wade passes.
The Vietnam War ends.
Ziggy Stardust is born.
And two boys fall in love
in a world that won't let them.
Based on the bestselling novel by James Brandon, with a Bowie-inspired cosmic rock score, Ziggy, Stardust & Me is a far-out coming-of-age love story.
In 1973 Missouri, 16-year-old Web isn’t expecting to find anything good at his new school after fleeing his past on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Certainly, he’s not expecting to connect with Jonathan, the spacey Ziggy Stardust-obsessed teen he gets paired with for a school project. As the two grow closer, Web grapples with his anger at an unjust world and Jonathan struggles with his own demons, believing that his sexuality needs to be “fixed” with conversion therapy. Together, both boys must try to end the wars inside themselves, and find a way forward through love in the tumultuous world that surrounds them.
02
THE BOOK
“One of the biggest and best
YA books of the summer.”
—Entertainment Weekly
A 2019 Indie Bestseller, lauded by critics​, and translated into three languages, Ziggy, Stardust & Me was named one of the best YA Books of the Year in 2019 by Entertainment Weekly, Teen Vogue, Buzzfeed, Advocate, Book Riot, Barnes & Noble,
and Seventeen Magazine
​
Set against the charged background of 1973, when homosexuality was still considered a mental illness, sixteen-year-old Jonathan Collins, a bullied, anxious, asthmatic kid, who aside from an alcoholic father and his sympathetic neighbor and friend Starla, is completely alone. To cope, Jonathan escapes to the safe haven of his imagination, where his hero David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and dead relatives, including his mother, guide him through the rough terrain of his life. In his alternate reality, Jonathan can be anything: a superhero, an astronaut, Ziggy Stardust, himself, or completely “normal” and not a boy who likes other boys. When he completes his treatments, he will be normal–at least he hopes. But before that can happen, Web stumbles into his life. Web is everything Jonathan wishes he could be: fearless, fearsome and, most importantly, not ashamed of being gay.
​