ANTHEM

Two teenagers take a road trip—searching for a fugitive family member and finding…America.

It’s June 1969. Hints that her estranged but beloved big brother, Barry, has fetched up in San Francisco prompt 14-year-old Molly to enlist their fledgling-drummer cousin, Norman, 17, as driver and (with the collusion of their newly liberated moms) head west from Charleston in an old school bus. Quickly turning into anything but a straight run, the journey plunges the naïve but resilient travelers into a succession of youth-culture hot spots from Atlanta’s funky Strip to a commune in New Mexico, with stops at renowned recording studios and live-music venues. Wiles opens and closes this musically and culturally immersive road trip with extensive montages of period news photos, quotes, headlines, and lyrics, scatters smaller documentary sheaves throughout, and enriches the song titles at each chapter head with production notes. The glittering supporting cast includes famed session musician Hal Blaine, Duane Allman, Elvis, and Wavy Gravy. While leaving the era’s more-conservative, racist majority visible but at a remove from her white protagonists, the author introduces them to an interracial couple with a baby and a same-sex couple of Vietnam vets. In the end, Barry’s fate takes on minor significance next to the profound changes the trip has wrought on their hearts and minds.

No sex or drugs—but plenty of live, heady rock-’n’-roll.