In the New World - Hardcover

"One of the most appealing volumes among the flood of baby boomer memoirs .... Wright remembers in a smoothly articulate style that takes us back into history in near novelistic fashion."

-- Chicago Sun-Times

From the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the reelection of Ronald Reagan, this widely acclaimed, engaging memoir is both the story of one man's coming of age in 1960s Dallas and a provocative account of the end of American innocence. By bearing witness to the experiences that came to define an American era -- the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, the civil rights movement, the crisis of Watergate, and the emergence of Ronald Reagan -- Lawrence Wright has written the autobiography of a generation, giving back to us with stunning force the feelings of those turbulent times.

"An extraordinary book .... This is history without detachment, a memoir made universal. To read it is to relive the times."

-- Kansas City Star

"Beautifully traces a young man's personal reckoning through the years of chaos in his homeland. In the New World succeeds because of its subtle interchange between memory and fact."

-- Boston Globe

Like Bob Greene's Be True to Your School (LJ 4/15/87), this memoir deals with the thoughts and feelings of a young man coming of age in the early 1960s. However, the scope of this is much broader: Wright relates his "growing up" to his whole generation and the dream they dreamed. Wright lived in Dallas at the time of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and his story progresses up to the attempted assassination of President Reagan. Wright traces his shift from a conservative, church-going young man to conscientious objector who bought into the dream of a better world made so by those then under 30. Now at middle age, if the "dream" is still alive, it's not the same innocent vision. An important book. Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Lib., Seaside, Cal.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.