Synopses & Reviews
New York in the 50s is Dan Wakefield's story of a unique time and place in cultural history, when New York City was a hotbed of free love, hot jazz, radical politics, psychoanalysis, and artistic expression. Wakefield found himself in the middle of a world in which anything was possible, and he writes about the era with the keen eye of a historian and the first-hand knowledge and affection of one who lived through a fabled, fertile era. Wakefield enriches his recollections with the first-hand accounts of his friends and colleagues-Joan Didion, Gay Talese, Allen Ginsberg, William F. Buckley, James Baldwin, and others who made New York in the fifties the legend that still exerts such a powerful influence on American life.
A documentary film based on the book will be shown at film festivals in the United States and abroad during 1999. A CD of the musical score, composed and produced by Steve Allee, has been released by AlleyOop Music Publishing.
Review
"A precise and moving recreation of a time and a place when the world seemed small and we know everyone in it." --Joan Didion
"Dan Wakefield...has become the Boswell of the heady days when art and literature had a single flowering in the Village." --Richard Shepard, The New York Times
"It's hard to imagine a remembrance more congenial-so graceful, so immune to grudge, so seasoned throughout with the equally vivid recollections of his friends." --John Leonard, Newsday
"This lovely, brimming book...tells anyone who was not there what it was like." --The Boston Globe
"Wakefield brings it all back: the emotional kick of Mabel Mercer singing 'My Funny Valentine,' the pleasure of finding a new Salinger story." --Scott Donaldson, USA Today
"Dan Wakefield is a master storyteller." --"The Los Angeles Times
About the Author
Dan Wakefield is the author of the best-selling novels
Going All the Way and
Starting Over, both of which were produced as feature films. His novel
Under the Apple Tree is now being developed for film. Wakefield's nonfiction works include
Returning: A Spiritual Journey and
Creating from the Spirit.