WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO THE CLASS OF '65?

by Michael & David Wallechinsky Medved ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 21, 1976

They were the golden boys and girls of 1965. Time profiled them, the seniors of Palisades High School: sophisticated, affluent, destined for glittering achievements. Where are they now, these kids who were supposed to bring on the greening of America? Wallechinsky (son of author Irving Wallace) and Medved, two of them, have made a very readable though hardly extraordinary book of their classmates ten years after. Mark Holmes, class president, quarterback, and most-likely-to-succeed is today a ""minister"" of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, into acupuncture and herbal medicine. Lisa Menzies, the ebullient ""bad girl"" who tallied 425 lovers before she stopped counting, lives with her two children; her parents pay the rent but her spirit is unquashed. The class ""dreamboat"" committed suicide; the class misfit, Reilly Ridgell, lives on Truk Island, Micronesia. Jamie Kelso, the boy Time called a ""near genius,"" is a John Bircher, having previously used up gurus and meditation, Movement politics, Existentialism, and Scientology. After bouts with law school, politics, and advertising Medved has discovered Orthodox Judaism. Were they really such an exceptional bunch? No, they weren't. Fortunately, the authors know it; they muse on the special problems of living through ""one of the few periods in human history in which constructing a 'normal' life was a genuine achievement."" A great many Pali grads seem to have ridden the crest of every wave of the decade. There's precious little political consciousness in evidence; the Southern California imprimatur is unmistakable. A modest, tactful book and for that very reason, appealing.

Pub Date: Sept. 21, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION