At turns critical and poignant, a thoroughly researched exploration of the ultimate price tag for the end of the 1960s.
A historical retrospective on the dark side of the Summer of Love and the end of an era.
As Austerlitz (Sitcom: A History in 24 Episodes from I Love Lucy to Community, 2014, etc.) notes, while the much-hyped Woodstock Festival came to symbolize the 1960s counterculture’s utopian vision, “Altamont became an easy symbol of the failings of that hopeful time.” The idea for the Altamont festival began with the Rolling Stones, who sought to bookend their North American tour with a free Woodstock-like event to be held in the San Francisco Bay Area. Featuring Santana, the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane, the poorly planned festival—thrown together last-minute at the unlikely Altamont Speedway—began without a hitch. However, before the night was over, violence reigned, culminating in the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Meredith Hunter, one of few black concertgoers in attendance. Who to blame for Altamont’s failure and Hunter’s death? The racial turbulence of the times? The cavalier attitude of festival organizers? The violence-prone Hells Angels, hired for security? The Rolling Stones who hired them? The Grateful Dead, who were too high to play to a growingly restless audience? As Austerlitz amply demonstrates, it was all of this and more. Interviewing the likes of Jefferson Airplane guitarist Paul Kantner, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, filmmaker Joan Churchill, and Hunter’s surviving family members, the author looks critically at this pivotal historical event while paying tribute to Hunter, who, as Austerlitz writes, “was not just a name, not just a dead man at a rock concert.” Austerlitz also examines the Altamont documentary Gimme Shelter and the trial and acquittal of Hells Angel Alan Passaro, and he provides updates on the fates of the players involved in the day’s unraveling.
At turns critical and poignant, a thoroughly researched exploration of the ultimate price tag for the end of the 1960s.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-08319-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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