Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties
| Author | Robert Stone |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | autobiography, memoir |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Publishers |
Publication date | January 5, 2007 |
| Pages | 229 pp |
| ISBN | 9780060198169 |
| OCLC | 466315902 |
| Preceded by | Bay of Souls |
| Followed by | Fun with Problems |
Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties is the 2007 memoir of novelist Robert Stone. The book is structured as a series of personal vignettes[1] recounting Stone's global experiences covering approximately 15 years, from about 1958 to 1972.
Stone begins this memoir during his final year in the military (1958), when he visited South Africa as a navy journalist. At that time, Stone was serving in the Navy aboard a transport ship in the Indian Ocean.[2]
The book ends with Stone in another foreign outpost, this time working as a reporter and correspondent in Vietnam, where he witnessed the invasion of Laos. Some of these experiences were the impetus for what is perhaps Stone's most well-known book: the National Book Award-winning novel Dog Soldiers, published in 1974.[3]
Many things happen during the time period between these two episodes. Some of the highlights include Stone's marriage to his wife Janice, and their move to New Orleans in 1960, a city that provides the setting for his first novel A Hall of Mirrors. Stone also describes his family's four-year expatriation in England. However, the core of "Prime Green" is Stone's account of his friendship with Ken Kesey,[4][5] starting at Stanford but including New York at the end of Kesey's famous bus trip with the Merry Pranksters to the 1964 New York World's Fair.[6] Michael Silverblatt points out in an interview with Stone that the various "locutions," specific to the 1960s, are interesting to hear again as they're channeled through the prose of Prime Green. Stone agrees that some of the images of the 60s evoked by the spoken word now seem anachronistic. But other locutions still retain their evocative qualities.[7]
This memoir is ian important document for some cultural historians because it is a first-hand account of many (now iconic) 1960s counterculture moments in the United States, and so may be a vital primary source documenting a crucial time period in a country's cultural, literary, and historical inheritance, transition, and legacy.[8]
References
- ↑ Stone, Robert. "Prime Green". NPR. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
- ↑ "on Robert Stone's Prime Green, Carolyn Forche, The Writer and the World | On the Seawall: A Literary Website by Ron Slate (GD)". Ronslate.com. 2007-09-22. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
- ↑ Stone, Robert (2007-01-03). "Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties by Robert Stone : Book Review - USATODAY.com". Books.usatoday.com. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
- ↑ Floyd Skloot (2007-01-14). "Robert Stone remembers the '60s / Ken Kesey has central place in memoir of novelist's hippie days". SFGate. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
- ↑ Nancy Klingener. "Key West's Literary Community Mourns Robert Stone". wlrn.org. Retrieved 12 November 2015.
- ↑ Louis Branning. "Uncle Bob's Van: A Review of Robert Stone's Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties". The Millions. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
- ↑ "Robert Stone — Bookworm Interview: March 29, 2007". KCRW.
- ↑ "Letters from New York". americansc.org.uk. Retrieved 12 November 2015.
External links
- "Robert Stone - Excerpt from "Prime Green"". YouTube. 2007-02-07. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
- Caldwell, Gail (2007-01-07). "We were stardust - The Boston Globe". Boston.com. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
- "Prime Green: Remembering the - Books". Debate.org. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
- Mabe, Chauncey. "Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties by Robert Stone". PopMatters. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
- "Robert Stone | Author". Big Think. Retrieved 2013-11-25.