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‘Revolutionaries’ by Joshua Furst

April 1st, 2019

WHO: Joshua Furst

WHAT: REVOLUTIONARIES, a novel

WHEN: Published by Knopf April 19, 2019

WHERE: The author lives in New York.

WHY: “A grown-up child of the 1960s looks back in anger, seasoned with retroactive awe, at his mercurial father, a legendary activist and counterculture icon.
“It will be all but impossible for readers of a certain age to wander far into this elegiac monologue about family upheaval, political tumult, and ruined hopes without thinking of Yippie co-founder Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989), who challenged the political establishment in the ’60s with anarchic humor, incendiary rhetoric, and heedless mischief.
“Most (if not quite all) of the things that happen in this novel to the irrepressible Lenny Snyder, from his glory days as street-level activist and counterculture superstar to his early-1970s period on the run from drug-related criminal charges, happened in real life to Hoffman. Furst filters Lenny’s life through the childhood reminiscences of his grown-up son, Fred, short for ‘Freedom,’ who was literally conceived by Lenny and his wife, Suzy, on the grounds of Central Park’s Sheep Meadow minutes after they were married in front of ‘four thousand witnesses tripping on acid and a photographer from the Associated Press.’
“At first, Fred, along with everybody in Lenny’s orbit, is enthralled with his dad’s ‘cracked-whip cackle,’ rapid-fire patter, and physical courage. But the older Fred gets, the more bewildered he is by Lenny’s mood swings and the verbal abuse and offhand neglect he visits upon those closest to him, whether it’s Fred’s mother, the novel’s most heartbreaking character, or folk singer Phil Ochs, who’s a very close second as he always shows up to help, despite his estrangement from Lenny and his own physical and psychological decline, wherever Suzy and Fred are struggling to live after Lenny’s deep dive into the underground.
“Other real-life characters come into view, including Allen Ginsberg, William Kunstler, and Jerry Rubin. But what raises this book far above being a roman à clef are the vivid scenes of Fred trying to have a normal childhood in gray, grimy Nixon-era New York City and of him and his mother finding solace with each other as they watch Lenny drift away from them, literally and figuratively. A haunting vision of post-’60s malaise whose narrator somehow retains his humor, compassion, and even optimism in the wake of the most crushing disillusionment.” —KIRKUS, a starred review

“A heartfelt meditation on how quickly history outruns political and social ideas.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, a starred review

“Furst upends our often nostalgic, peace-and-love view of the Sixties.”
—Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, LIBRARY JOURNAL

. . . . .

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK:

Call me Fred. I hate Freedom. That’s some crap Lenny dreamed up to keep people like you talking about him.

And it worked. Right? I mean, you didn’t drive all the way up here with your tape recorder and backpack full of good intentions to learn about me. I’m just the kid. What you want is more of him. More of the ’60s hoopla. All that rebel music. The tie-dyes and free love and taking it to the streets. Even now, twenty-eight years after he died, you can’t get enough.

So, fine. It’s been like that my whole life. Who am I to judge?

By the time Lenny was the age I am now, he’d changed the world — or, anyway, that’s what he would have claimed. And me? I’m just some dude who’s done some carpentry. Some bathtub restoration. Sustained myself by staying out of sight. I’ve worn ironic T-shirts and thought ironic thoughts about the commodification of revolution, worked at coffee shops and bookstores. Whatever it took. I’ve run some scams. I’ve had scams run on me. I’ve deflected and I’ve survived. If there’s one thing you learn when you’re Lenny Snyder’s son it’s how to bullshit your way on through to the next day.

But really, I don’t know anything about anything. Except Lenny, I guess. I know a lot about him.

Jacket photo

Media Resources:
About the book and author | Author tour | Download the jacket | Download the author photo

Knopf. 334 pages. $26.95
ISBN 978-0-307-27114-3


To interview the author, contact:
Gabrielle Brooks | 212-572-2152 | gbrooks@penguinrandomhouse.com