Synopses & Reviews
Praised by Robbie Robertson of The Band as "a classic & a ticket to ride," assembles an astonishing group of writers and artists: Paul Muldoon, Stanley Crouch, R. Crumb, Jon Langford of the Mekons, Sharyn McCrumb, Luc Sante, Joyce Carol Oates, Dave Marsh, and more than a dozen other novelists, essayists, performers, and critics; to explore the ineffable power of the American ballad. From "Barbara Allen" through "The Wreck of the Old 97" to contemporary ballads by Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, is, as Geoffrey O'Brien hailed in the Book Review, "a book full of internal echoes and provocative coincidences," featuring "historical investigation, shamanistic trance-journey, memoir, novella and cartoon," where "names and costumes change, soldiers become cowboys, demon lovers become backwoods murderer; the voices are unmistakably distinct but they share a common ground."
Synopsis
A devastatingly original work that plunges into the emotional heart of the American psyche.
About the Author
Greil Marcus is the author of Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads, Lipstick Traces, and Mystery Train. An Old Dominion Fellow at Princeton University in 2002, he lives in Berkeley, California.Sean Wilentz is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor of History and director of the Program in American Studies at Princeton University. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.