ANTI-CALIFORNIA: Life in Our First Parafascist State

by Kenneth Lamott ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 25, 1971

A collection of newsclips, snapshots, and some longer pieces about that ""advance post of our civilization"" (Priestley) which adds up to an entertaining doomsday book about that state and the ultimate state of the nation. Mr. Lamott is a Californian and a book (The Moneymakers) and magazine (Life, New York Times, etc.) writer, and the thrust of his book is very clear: he outlines it in the beginning, emphasizes it throughout and repeats it at the end. Namely, that California exemplifies the ""disintegration of traditional forms of our society"" and their parafascist reorientation. Reagan and Rafferty are only by-products; it would be happening without them. Lamott, in his easy style, raps about the younger kids (""the drug-scene is chilling""), the older ones on the militant campuses, San Quentin where he taught, and a marathon in ""conjugal guerrilla warfare"" at George Bach's Institute of Group Psychotherapy. All the direction signals are clearly if superficially pointing to the bottle, the couch, divorce or the Golden Gate Bridge in this land ""which looks like a tentative preface to extinction."" Among the fauna, Galbraith and Marcuse, Cleaver and Angela Davis, Chavez and Hayakawa. Even rose-colored glasses won't enable you to see through the smog and it's all noxious.

Pub Date: May 25, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION