Badlands - by Anthony Bongo (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

You survived the sixties and seventies. But did you ever make sense of them?

You remember where you were when the president was shot. You watched the war unfold on the evening news while your parents argued at the dinner table. You heard the promises of equality, saw them shatter in long, hot summers, and wondered why the adults in charge seemed just as lost as you were. You grew up in the space between idealism and disillusionment, and somewhere along the way, you stopped trying to reconcile the two.

Badlands: A Requiem for the Class of '76 is one man's deeply personal journey through the most turbulent stretch of modern American history, told from the rare vantage point of a child and adolescent absorbing it all in real time. From the Kennedy assassination through Vietnam, Watergate, the counterculture, the moon landing, and the fractured hope of a Bicentennial celebration, this memoir traces how a generation was shaped by forces it could barely comprehend. It is at once a nostalgic look back and an unflinching reckoning with the psychological toll of growing up in an era defined by confusion, loss, and stubborn resilience.

Inside these pages, you will discover:

- A year by year portrait of America from 1963 to 1976, filtered through the eyes of a young man finding his way - An honest exploration of how national trauma, family struggle, and personal identity collide during the most formative years of life - A moving reflection on memory, reunion, and what it means to finally look back and understand the terrain you survived