Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love

Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love

Author: David Talbot | Language: English | ISBN: 1439108242 | Format: PDF

Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love Description

From Booklist

The liberation of San Francisco came with a price. Talbot presents the tempestuous years, from 1967 to 1982, as a new-versus-old battle for the city’s soul. In an extensive history bursting with details and larger-than-life personalities, Talbot champions the outsiders, a human carnival from hippies to drag queens to activists, against the authorities representing the old, mainly Catholic, establishment. The extensive cast of characters includes Janis Joplin, Patty Hearst, Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and Bill Walsh. Talbot, who started the San Francisco–based web magazine Salon and previously wrote the bestseller Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (2007), presents gripping accounts of both crime sprees and football showdowns. Even people who were there might take away something new, and for others, the book offers a comprehensive introduction to the era. Talbot believes modern San Francisco values have changed the world, and he explores the crucible of the transformation, in all its hope, violence, and glory. --Bridget Thoreson
--This text refers to the






Hardcover
edition.

Review

“Exhaustive research yields penetrating character studies…Talbot incisively relates the atmosphere of service in the Haight…In a surprising ending, Talbot convincingly suggests that imperfect new mayor Dianne Feinstein resurrected the city’s heart as it rallied around the 49ers. In exhilarating fashion, Talbot clears the rainbow mist and brings San Francisco into sharp focus.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Talbot presents gripping accounts of both crime sprees and football showdowns. Even people who were there might take away something new, and for others, the book offers a comprehensive introduction to the era.” —Booklist

“A gritty corrective to our rosy memories…enthralling, news-driven history...smart and briskly paced tale... I found it hard to put down Season of the Witch." —San Francisco Chronicle

“An ambitious, labor-of-love illumination of a city’s soul, celebrating the uniqueness of San Francisco without minimizing the price paid for the city’s free-spiritedness… the author encompasses the city’s essence… Talbot loves his city deeply and knows it well, making the pieces of the puzzle fit together, letting the reader understand…Talbot takes the reader much deeper than cliché, exploring a San Francisco that tourists never discover.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

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• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; Reprint edition (March 5, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439108242
• ISBN-13: 978-1439108246
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

The book is well written, informative, and entertaining. But it is a strange exercise to read, written by someone with a great deal of information and skill but oddly lacking in a native grounding here. The result is a story told with great facility, but flawed in its biased and incomplete perspective and rather frequent lapses in accuracy.

As a native San Francisco Irish-American Catholic of several generations who came of age here in the era he describes, I find that the book takes a lot of liberties and leaves some unfortunate residues. He feels pretty free to slam Irish Catholic San Francisco, a community great in number with roots in the community that precede the Gold Rush. He even uses an ethnic slur: "Mick" in one passage - certainly you would not feel emboldened to present this kind of bias against any other religious or ethnic group in a mainstream non-fiction book release. (It seems that open ethnic and religious bias is quite OK in progressive circles if you are on the 'right' side of the struggle.)

This odd anti-Catholic, sort of love-hate vis the Irish, bias pervades the book. I think that the author found that he could easily portray old school working class San Francisco in a manner of stereotyping by simply calling the old establishment 'the Irish Catholics' (who certainly had power but never 'owned' the City) without having to do a whole lot of challenging research. He can't bring himself to say something nice about beautiful Sts. Peter & Paul's in North Beach without pairing it with a nasty criticism. This beloved church is one among dozens in the City that nurtured and educated hundreds of happy, well-adjusted people for whom the parish was the vital center of the community.

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