Cold Eye, Warm Heart

by Gerald Rosen

This is a personal history of the Sixties that reads like a novel, an American success story that turns into a spiritual journey, a comic and philosophical memoir that challenges the fundamental beliefs of our culture. The noted critic Jerome Klinkowitz, author of 23 books, has "This is the best book about the American cultural transformation of the last half of the twentieth century that has ever been written." (Mr. Klinkowitz is the person Kurt Vonnegut turned to for advice on his writing.) In 1964, Jerry Rosen was a company commander in the Army Medics. For a kid from uneducated parents in the Bronx, he was making a big success in a degree in engineering from Rensselaer, an MBA from Wharton (with honors), the only student at Wharton selected for the Boeing Executives of the Future Program. So why was he suicidal? By 1969, he had taken a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in American History and Literature, was living in Greenwich Village, running a liquor store on the edge of Harlem, rioting against the war, dropping acid, and studying Eastern philosophy. In 1972, he published his first novel in New York City, which received a large, favorable review in The New York Times. By then he was living in a shack in northern California and meditating. He had found a path with meaning. If you wanted to read one book that was sympathetic, funny, and yet told the real truth about the Sixties, this would be the book. Gerald Rosen is the award-winning author of seven books, including the novels Blues For A Dying Nation, The Carmen Miranda Memorial Flagpole, and Growing Up Bronx, and the non-fiction, Zen in the Art of J.D. Salinger.

540 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2009

Reviews

[Jim Bisso · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took a couple of writing classes from Jerry back in the early '80s. It was good to read the real back-story to his novels. I had picked up bits and pieces of his biography, but this put a structure and context to them.