Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle

by Walt Crowley

Book Overview

On a hot summer night in 1963, a teenager named Walt Crowley hopped off a bus in Seattle's University District, and began his own personal journey through the 1960s. Four years later at age 19, he was installed as "rapidograph in residence" at the Helix, the region's leading underground newspaper. His cartoons, cover art, and political essays helped define his generation's experience during that tumultuous decade.

Rites of Passage: A...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0295974931
• ISBN13: 9780295974934
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.9"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Cool Memoir of the 1960s Seattle Fringie Scene

If you were in Seattle in the 60s, reading the Helix hippy rag, hanging out at the Eiger and the P House, sitting on the Fringie Wall, smoking dope on Hippy Hill, protesting the war, blocking freeways, going to piano drops and pre-Woodstock rock festivals (Sky River), rooting for the Seattle Seven to get off, and whatnot (and you know what "whatnot"), then you *have* to read this book. Personally, I think Crowley spends too many pages recounting distant events on the national scene, to provide background for local events, I presume, but the remainder of the book, which gets down into the nitty gritty of what went on back then on the local Seattle scene, makes slugging through a few pages on the Chicago police riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention, for instance, well worth the effort. Still, others, who weren't around back then, may need the history lesson, I suppose.

A Superb Work

This is one of the few books I read in a single evening. Having experienced many of these events first hand, I still lacked Crowley's historical perspective. As a teenager I didn't know that much about what I was protesting about. Crowley is a first-class writer, and as a local historian he has no peer. Everyone who lived in Seattle during the 60s should find this book of interest; in fact it is so well-written that anyone who enjoys good journalism will enjoy it. Highly recommended work.