Description

---

An Austin Chronicle Best Book of the Year

Fred, given name Freedom, is the sole offspring of Lenny Snyder, the infamous pied piper of 1960s counterculture. From a young age, Fred has been exploited by his father and used to enhance Lenny's mystique. Now middle-aged, Fred looks back on life with this charismatic, brilliant, and volatile ringmaster, who is as captivating in these pages as he was to his devoted disciples back then. We see Lenny in his prime and then as he gradually loses his magnetic confidence and leading role at the end of the sixties. Lenny demands loyaty but gives none back in return; he preaches love but treats his family with almost reflexive cruelty. And Fred remembers all of it--the chaos, the spite, the affection. A kaledoscopic saga, this novel is at once a profound allegory for America and a deeply intimate portrait of a father and son.

About the Author

---

Joshua Furst is the author of the novels Revolutionaries and The Sabotage Café, which was named to the 2007 year-end best-of lists of the Chicago Tribune, the Rocky Mountain News and the Philadelphia City Paper, as well as being awarded the 2008 Grub Street Fiction Prize.  His critically acclaimed book of stories, Short People, was published in 2003.  His work has appeared in, among other periodicals, Esquire, Salon, The Chicago Tribune, BOMB, and The Forward, where he is a Contributing Editor. His plays include Whimper, Myn and The Ellipse and Other Shapes. He earned his BFA in Dramatic Writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and did graduate work at The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, from which he received an MFA with Honors in 2001. He lives in New York City, and teaches at Columbia University.

Praise For…

---

"Deeply felt and often beautiful . . . Furst's richly researched and detailed book gives us a vivid portrait of the Lower East Side in the '60s and '70s from the perspective of a radical milieu, but also from a child's eye, street-level view...a chaotic, ramshackle place . . . Revolutionaries examines the [period] from every angle, orbiting the evidence and arguments . . .The novel's ultimate beauty—like its characters'—is spiritual.  It refuses to sanctify or condemn anyone." — Greg Jackson, The New York Times Book Review

“Furst vividly depicts figures from the [the sixties and seventies] . . . [and Revolutionaries] knows . . . how to turn down the political and historical volume to let a reader see instead of just hear.” — Thomas Mallon, The New Yorker

“A masterpiece of narrative voice that wonders at the little regarded casualties of a life with a national profile.”—PJ Grisar, Forward
 
“Revolutionaries is overflowing, hyper, passionate, raunchy, forceful, and over the top—just like its subject, the fictitious sixties radical Lenny Snyder.”—Fran Hawthorne, New York Journal of Books

“A warts-and-all look at the 1960s counterculture through the eyes of Freedom “Fred” Snyder, the child of an Abbie Hoffman-like activist leader. . . . Furst upends our often nostalgic, peace-and-love view of the Sixties [and is] particularly adept at painting a visceral picture of Freedom’s surroundings, using the observational gifts of a child.”—Library Journal

“. . . rich material . . . Furst offers an honest look at what’s been won, and lost . . . [the novel] picks up steam as [Freedom] gains an increasingly realistic understanding of the cards he’s been dealt.” — Paul Wilner, Splice Today


“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. . . . 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 (starred)
 
“A heartfelt meditation on how quickly history outruns political and social ideals. . . . Furst’s novel and its themes will resonate with readers regardless of whether they lived through its time.”—Publishers Weekly (starred)
 
“Revolutionaries is an express train of a novel, and through its windows we are offered an extraordinary view of America’s ruination. At once comic and tragic and domestic and panoramic, this a wonderful, masterful novel.”—Joseph O’Neill, author of The Dog and Netherland
 
“The best portrayal of the charismatic and kinetic politics of the 60s since American Pastoral. Joshua Furst has given us a kaleidoscopic and timely exploration of the personal and political costs of populism—on the left or the right.”—David Cole, national legal director, ACLU, and author of Engines of Liberty: How Citizen Movements Succeed
 
 “A gorgeously written elegy for American subversion that will make you want to shout in the street, and a heartbreaking family story that’ll have you weeping as you do it.”—James Hannaham, author of Delicious Foods and God Says No
 
“A triumph of narration—sly, fierce, funny—and a brilliant take on one of America’s great insurrectionary moments. Freedom Snyder is a narrator to treasure, and Joshua Furst brings a beautiful mix of empathy, longing, scorn and a sense of tragic witness to this novel of politics and family love.”—Sam Lipsyte, author of Hark and The Ask