1974

A Personal History

By: Francine Prose

Narrated by: Francine Prose

“In this remarkable memoir, the qualities that have long distinguished Francine Prose’s fiction and criticism—uncompromising intelligence, a gratifying aversion to sentiment, the citrus bite of irony—give rigor and, finally, an unexpected poignancy to an emotional, artistic, and political coming-of-age tale set in the 1970s—the decade, as she memorably puts it, when American youth realized that the changes that seemed possible in the ’60s weren’t going to happen. A fascinating and ultimately wrenching book.”—Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million

The first memoir from critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose, about the close relationship she developed with activist Anthony Russo, one of the men who leaked the Pentagon Papers—and the year when our country changed.

During her twenties, Francine Prose lived in San Francisco, where she began an intense and strange relationship with Tony Russo, who had been indicted and tried for working with Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon papers. The narrative is framed around the nights she spent with Russo driving manically around San Francisco, listening to his stories—and the disturbing and dramatic end of that relationship in New York.

What happens to them mirrors the events and preoccupations of that historical moment: the Vietnam war, drugs, women's liberation, the Patty Hearst kidnapping. At once heartfelt and ironic, funny and sad, personal and political, 1974 provides an insightful look at how Francine Prose became a writer and artist during a time when the country, too, was shaping its identity.

©2024 Francine Prose (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

Powerful personal history

I really enjoyed reading this “personal history” of what it was like to be a young woman in her twenties starting a writing career and finding her way through the world—at a particular moment in time, 1974, and through the lens of a brief relationship she had with Tony Russo, who had gained fame for his role in leaking the Pentagon Papers. This is not a straight-up national history book about 1974 and the Pentagon Papers. Yet it powerfully conveys what it was like for one young woman to be alive at that time, in the United States—the aspirations her immigrant parents had for her, her own curiosity, anxieties, and quest to build a life in the wake of the 1960s idealism when values and politics were shifting... and toward what? The book gives us a sense of how the present and the future seemed open-ended, almost in free fall, at least for the author at the time.

It’s a book about memory, about change and continuity in the self, so the narrative actually weaves in and out of 1974, to prior and later years. Stylistically, the frequent use of repetition to open a series of sentences effectively dramatizes the efforts of the author-narrator at piecing together a past self from the present perspective, and finding meaning in it. Whether framed as assertions, speculations, or reflections, these refrains are like a hypnotic drumbeat, or heartbeat, running through the book in a way that reminds me of Joe Brainard’s beautiful autobiography, “I Remember” — which is apt, considering that Brainard’s book came out in 1970-75, the very time period when this book is set. Listening to the voice of the author herself narrating this personal history powerfully amplifies that feeling. The effect is like a spirit medium conjuring up a past self—channeling that past self, relationships, experiences, sensations, and thoughts—through the perspective of the present, alternately tinged with regret, insight, curiosity, compassion. And indeed, at various points in the book, the author-narrator mentions the various mystical practices that she and others turned to at the time, like I-Ching divination and tarot cards. The book communicates this search for meaning and reassurance in a world where the ground seemed to be constantly shifting like sand.

PS One of my favorite parts of the book is how she recounts Tony’s description of his boss in Saigon, “Dr Strangelove”. (Chapter: “We got back in the car”)

Droning about unremarkable events

The performance was indeed, bad. But I would have rated the book more highly if it had a more interesting story to tell. The reviewer I read implied a more eventful tale, better told.

Kept waiting for it to improve

What a boring book about the author's short friendship with a semi famous person, who is not of interest to many people in our current time. If you are a person curious about the era of the Vietnam Nam war period you may find this of slight interest. There is nothing to give away as the book has no plot twist or other usual elements of memoir writing. The book is about the psychological decline Tony Russo post Pentagon Papers/Vietnam Nam war... the author was enraptured by is fame regarding his part in the Pentagon Papers.
I kept waiting for the book to improve or pick up. It never does. Further, the author reads it herself, she is very monotone. BORING!