Run Run Run
The Lives of Abbie Hoffman
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- ¥2,600
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- ¥2,600
Publisher Description
Intertwining the details of Abbie Hoffman's intense personal life with the movement politics of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, Dan Simon writes Abbie's story from the point of view of his younger brother Jack, creating a full and poignant portrait of one of the geniuses of the 1960s counterculture. From the creation of the Yippies! in 1967 and the tumult of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, to the humor and agony of the Chicago conspiracy trial, the scandal of Abbie's 1973 cocaine bust, and his six and a half years as a fugitive, to his reemergence as environmentalist "Barrie Freed' and his final struggle with manic-depressive illness, this biography offers a compelling examination of the contradictions that make Abbie Hoffman such a compelling figure. With the information and affection only a brother could bring to the complexities of Abbie's life, Hoffman and Simon portray Abbie's public persona alongside his private aspirations and fears, romances, and enduring family relationships.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The obsessive inner forces that drove Abbie Hoffman (1936-89), antiwar protester, media manipulator and grassroots organizer, are illuminated in this engaging biography by his younger brother. Jack Hoffman's intimate first-person narrative is coauthored with Simon, cofounder of Four Wall Eight Windows publishing. The book offers close views of Abbie's troubled relationship with his conservative father, his contentious first marriage and his role in the 1969 Chicago Conspiracy trial. Also revealed are his constant drug use, including his 1973 cocaine bust and his fugitive years with ex-model Johanna Lawrenson, during which, as ``Barry Freed,'' he organized an environmentalist campaign to save the St. Lawrence Seaway. We learn that Abbie took lithium for manic-depressive disorder; Jack Hoffman retracts his statement alleging foul play, made shortly after Abbie died of barbituate poisoning, and describes his brother's self-medicating at the time of his death. Photos.
