Marcus on Grown-up Anger

In this book—so soberly inflamed that the pages seem to turn of their own accord—the history of the American 20th century is made of lodestars that don’t figure in conventional accounts: a mass death in the middle of a strike in 1913, a few songs from thirty, fifty years after, the way of life implied by their competing tales. A story begins, leaves marks on the country, then fades out. The will toward justice is the motor of Wolff’s history; its road is blocked, diverted, blown up, renamed, until one might find justice far more readily in a song than in life, and it may be that this book could not appear at a less receptive time. It is at precisely at this moment that its story will be most fully heard.
-- Greil Marcus, author “Mystery Train,” "The Old Weird America," "Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations."
Grown-Up Anger: The Connected Mysteries of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Calumet Massacre of 1913 Coming June 13