Synopses & Reviews
In this surprising book, the celebrated Harvard professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, declared "a national treasure" by The Washington Post Book World, writes about music legend Bruce Springsteen and the powerful impact his work has, both in the lives of ordinary people and as part of America's literary tradition. Coles places Springsteen in the tradition of other American writers and poets Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Walker Percy, John Steinbeck who wrote of their "traveling companions in time," the ordinary people of their eras. With wisdom and a unique personal perspective, Coles shares with us what a truck driver, a schoolteacher, and others say about the meaning Springsteen's words have in their lives, shedding new light on "The Boss," removing the star from fan-filled stadiums and placing the poet in a greater social, cultural, and philosophical context. He shows Springsteen to be representative of a uniquely American ideology an icon who does not simply personify the culture of which he is a part but rather engages it, interacts with its people, in a conversation that has helped to shape a distinct way of looking at, and living, American life today.
Review
"Plainspoken and poignant." Booklist
About the Author
Robert Coles, a child psychiatrist, is the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Children of Crisis as well as The Spiritual Life of Children, Women of Crisis, and Lives of Moral Leadership, among many other books. A professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at the Harvard Medical School, he is also the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard. He lives in Massachusetts.