{"product_id":"1974-a-personal-history-isbn-9780063314092","title":"1974: A Personal History","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"In this remarkable memoir, the qualities that have long distinguished Francine Prose’s fiction and criticism—uncompromising intelligence, a gratifying aversion to sentiment, the citrus bite of irony—give rigor and, finally, an unexpected poignancy to an emotional, artistic, and political coming-of-age tale set in the 1970s—the decade, as she memorably puts it, when American youth realized that the changes that seemed possible in the ’60s weren’t going to happen. A fascinating and ultimately wrenching book.\"—Daniel Mendelsohn, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe first literary memoir from critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose, about the close relationship she developed with activist Anthony Russo, one of the men who leaked the Pentagon Papers—and the year when our country changed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDuring her twenties, Francine Prose lived in San Francisco, where she began an intense and strange relationship with Tony Russo, who had been indicted and tried for working with Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon papers. The narrative is framed around the nights she spent with Russo driving manically around 1970s San Francisco, listening to his stories—and the disturbing and dramatic end of that relationship in New York.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat happens to them mirrors the events and preoccupations of that historical moment in the Watergate era: the Vietnam war, drugs, women's liberation, the Patty Hearst kidnapping. At once heartfelt and ironic, funny and sad, personal and political, \u003ci\u003e1974\u003c\/i\u003e provides an insightful look at how Francine Prose became a writer and artist during a time when the country, too, was shaping its identity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat happens when a young writer’s coming-of-age story collides with one of the biggest political scandals in American history?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA Whistleblower Story:\u003c\/b\u003e Go behind the headlines for an intimate, firsthand account of Anthony Russo, the complex and charismatic man who helped Daniel Ellsberg leak the Pentagon Papers.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003ePolitical Coming-of-Age:\u003c\/b\u003e Witness how a young Francine Prose finds her voice as a writer against the turbulent backdrop of the Vietnam War, radical activism, and women’s liberation.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eCounterculture History:\u003c\/b\u003e Experience the charged atmosphere of a nation grappling with its identity, from the Patty Hearst kidnapping to the lingering idealism of the 1960s.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eAn Unforgettable Voice:\u003c\/b\u003e Discover the incisive wit, sharp intelligence, and unflinching honesty that have made Francine Prose one of her generation’s most acclaimed literary figures.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“In this remarkable memoir, the qualities that have long distinguished Francine Prose’s fiction and criticism—uncompromising intelligence, a gratifying aversion to sentiment, the citrus bite of irony—give rigor and, finally, an unexpected poignancy to an emotional, artistic, and political coming-of-age tale set in the 1970s—the decade, as she memorably puts it, when American youth realized that the changes that seemed possible in the 60s weren’t going to happen. A fascinating and ultimately wrenching book.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Deeply felt and devastatingly confessional, this brave personal reckoning isn’t easy to forget.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Prose’s novels are . . . rollicking, flinty, teasing, fabulist yarns . . . . You close the book, and what lingers is the frictional plentitude, the radiant funk, of changing and being changed by other people . . . . Many Prose books deal with authorship feigned, manipulated, and stolen, and \u003cem\u003e1974\u003c\/em\u003e continues the theme . . . . she belonged in the driver’s seat, not sitting shotgun . . . . Russo lost a helpmeet, and literature gained a grande dame.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e4Columns\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“To regard Francine Prose’s award-winning title list—she has written 23 works of fiction and nine nonfiction books—is to understand that some people really do know more, work longer, and write harder. Yet her first memoir, \u003cem\u003e1974: A Personal History\u003c\/em\u003e, is imbued with an utter lack of self-importance. In \u003cem\u003e1974\u003c\/em\u003e, the self is a lens through which the light of the world can pour, as well as its darkness. Prose pairs her merciless scrutiny of that era’s misogyny, moral compromise and sexual liberation with a keen inquiry into her own motivations for dating the whistleblower Tony Russo.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eElectric Literature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Prose’s first memoir makes something dark and dizzying of a tumultuous decade.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Captivating . . . . With its fraught, late-night conversations about secrets and regret—most of which take place in a big American car hurtling down San Francisco’s rain-slicked streets—\u003cem\u003e1974: A Personal History\u003c\/em\u003e often reads like a heady film noir set amid the ashes of ’60s idealism.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Prose’s memoir of course reflects her own experience, but like all memoirs, it also offers a snapshot in time, in this case a tumultuous period in U.S. history. . . . Prose brings a sharp lens to her shortcomings. . . . This is among the many reasons Prose is widely admired as a writer. She spares no one, including herself. Intentionally or not, with this book she is making the case that she was indeed meant to be a writer.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A personal history of great charm and sensitivity. It is also an artful portrait of those maddening times . . . . Ms. Prose makes a fine Virgil through the period’s sometimes infernal landscape.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaniel Akst, Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[Prose’s] first memoir . . . after a career of more than 50 years and more than 30 books, is a mesmerizing, gut-wrenching one . . . . The younger Prose she creates on the page is as vivid as the characters in her novels, from \u003cem\u003eBlue Angel\u003c\/em\u003e to \u003cem\u003eThe Vixen\u003c\/em\u003e; she’s curious and open-minded and searching but also grievously uncertain, not yet in possession of her true north.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAlta\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Enthralling—a searching and fearless account of a misbegotten love affair as well as a wrenching elegy for the baby boom generation.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Forward\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Deeply personal . . . revealing . . . . Joyful and sad nostalgia offered up in spades.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In this wonderfully clear-sighted memoir Francine Prose catches a moment when idealism shifted and the world turned. \u003cem\u003e1974 \u003c\/em\u003eis also a story about youth, risk and survival—a story women don't tell often enough, perhaps. Wise, achieved, entirely satisfying.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnne Enright, author of The Wren, the Wren\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A moving tale, from an expert storyteller, about growing up.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“If the phrase 'casual elegance' had not been co-opted for cardigans, it could be applied to Prose’s nonfiction style.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In this, her first memoir, Prose\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003esucceeds where many before her have failed, enlivening—without demonizing or idealizing—the valiant, creative, idealistic movement that almost brought capitalism down. The era Prose profiles under the title \u003cem\u003e1974\u003c\/em\u003e produced crucial social advances, and did collateral damage to those, such as Russo, who were driven mad by the effort required. Fortunately for us, that period also yielded the best book yet by the wildly prolific, astonishingly talented Francine Prose.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Prose deftly zigzags through the pop-culture touchstones of her youth, throwing everything from \u003cem\u003eVertigo \u003c\/em\u003eto Kurt Vonnegut’s \u003cem\u003eMother Night \u003c\/em\u003einto dialogue with a chaotic period of both her life and American history.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eVulture\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Francine Prose's \u003cem\u003e1974: A Personal History\u003c\/em\u003e is a reverberating account of a time—the point in the early 1970s when the revolutionary energy of the 1960s had been replaced by futility and paranoia--and of a character, Tony Russo, who exemplifies that time. The constraint of history and character gives the book a novelistic intensity and focus, with, as a bonus, a three-dimensional portrait of the author on the threshold of adulthood.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLucy Sante\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A stunningly alive portrait of the artist as a young woman, set during that dizzying time when the hopeful love-fest of the '60s morphed into the murky violence of the '70s. Reporting from both coasts, Prose laser-focuses on her relationship with indicted Tony Russo who had helped leak the Pentagon papers, the outrageous Patty Hearst kidnapping, drugs, sex, and the omnipotent Vietnam war. A fascinating travelogue of the tremendous changes in both a country and a personality struggling to find their best selves. Heartbreaking, haunting and indelible.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCaroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Days of Wonder\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Award-winning Prose writes her first memoir, setting it in the ’70s and detailing her relationship with activist Anthony Russo, of the Pentagon Papers fame. She was in her 20s, driving around San Francisco at night, hearing his theories and stories, and forming herself as an artist—and coming of age in a radically changing world.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Through the prism of \u003cem\u003eVertigo, in a \u003c\/em\u003espellbinding memoir, Francine Prose resurrects her misbegotten San Francisco romance in 1974 with one of the two men who stole and published the Pentagon Papers, the one who went to prison for it, the one driven mad by the lies of Viet Nam. A hypnotic portrait of a lost time when people lived and died for the truth.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJohn Guare, playwright, Six Degrees of Separation and A Free Man of Color\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Francine Prose’s sublime, haunting memoir shows us the Seventies in all its dizzying contradictions—the darkness and paranoia, the open roads and strange new connections. A world where some voices disintegrated, never to cohere again—while others emerged, brilliant and searing, out of the calamity. Poignant, mesmerizing, profound—\u003cem\u003e1974 \u003c\/em\u003eoffers revelations not just about the Seventies but about our world today.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDanzy Senna, author of Caucasia and New People\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Prose brings all her artistry and astuteness to her first memoir… a rueful and affecting look back.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890643628261,"sku":"NP9780063314092","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780063314092.jpg?v=1730233753","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/1974-a-personal-history-isbn-9780063314092","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}