Here's some information about a new book by Guy Maynard - sounds like it will bring back lots of memories of the 1960s and 1970s.
Enjoy!
Guy Maynard is a writer from Eugene, Oregon. The Risk of Being Ridiculous is published by Hellgate Press and available at local bookstores, at Hellgatepress.com, or from online booksellers.
It’s Boston 1969 and nineteen-year-old Ben Tucker lives in a funky apartment on Mountfort Street with his tribe of fellow long-haired freaks. Together they mix radical street politics, a love of rock and roll, and celebratory drug use in their desperate search for lives that make sense in a world distorted by war, racism, and bankrupt values.
Ridiculous takes you on a passionate, lyrical six-week ride through confrontation and confusion, courts and cops, parties and politics, school and the streets, Weathermen and women’s liberation, acid and activism, revolution and reaction. And, of course, Love - as through it all Ben feverishly pursues the long-shot desire of his life: Sarah Stein.
"Maynard vividly evokes the passions and fevered tempo of those times - the music, the weed, the hitchhiking, the fellowship, the idealism, the outrage, and the wildness in the streets as the overwhelming need to do something, whether brave or foolish or both, ran headlong at the forces of civil order. If you came of age in that riotous and magical period of American life, you’re likely to recognize variations of your own story in this lively narrative" - John Daniel, author of Rogue River Journal and The Far Corner.
". . .a love story and a time machine. Spanning just six weeks during 1969, it’s the story of real events from heady, drug-hazed, headline-making time in Maynard’s life . . . You can imagine this novel being used in classrooms to help students of [this] era really understand the risks kids were taking to fight against the [Vietnam] war and to live in radically different ways than their parents had" - Jamie Passaro, The Register Guard.
"Maynard draws on his years in the Boston area to paint the scene for us in great detail . . . He injects fascinating historical facts in the book, his characters are memorable and sympathetic and the dialogue flows easily. His account of being in a protest mob facing angry cops is gripping, and his description of an LSD trip is the most transporting we’ve read anywhere. The tale builds to an unpredictable ending" - Ted Taylor, Eugene Weekly.
"[Maynard] captures both the essence of that one colorfully wild historical moment - the late 1960s - and the timeless yearning for meaning. . . . In the end, [this] is a romance as tender as any you’ll read" - Ana Maria Spagna, author of Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter’s Civil Rights Journey, winner of the 2009 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize.
TheRiskofBeingRidiculous.com
facebook.com/theriskofbeingridiculous
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