Some Months in 1968 - by Baron Wormser (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

During the course of his career, poet-writer Baron Wormser has investigated the hearts of many matters. In Some Months in 1968, he portrays the Brownsons, a family of five living in suburban Baltimore, who experience one of the most tumultuous moments in American history. Using elements of flash-fiction, biography, poetry, history, and essay, he reaches into the immediacy of daily breakfasts and the minds of Lyndon Baines Johnson and Ho Chi Minh, into the consumer culture of the United States and the stirrings of political and spiritual conscience, into music and raw violence. As a novel, Some Months in 1968 offers a vision of a society riven by conflicts. The relevance of those months, as this remarkable novel makes plain, remains.

Review Quotes

"The Brownsons, without irony or cynicism, are intent on living moral and loving lives in an immoral time in an immoral country. They become some of your best and trusted friends." --Robert Shetterly, Portraits of Racial Justice: Americans Who Tell the Truth

"Baron Wormser has the ability to see into the depths of the American soul with its greed, its violence, and the racial oppression that its founding depended upon...set within the turbulence of an American family trying to navigate a year of violence and a son's attempts to claim himself as a conscientious objector." --Karen Osborne

"The chapters in Some Months in 1968 fit together like the lines in a poem. Imagine a story about the ins and outs of a suburban white family in that crisis year, one that's equally about coming-of-age angst and yearnings and about confronting or avoiding the issues of inequality, racism, the war, and the draft. Imagine that the writer also gets you with depth and sympathy into the opposing minds and worldviews of Lyndon Johnson and Ho Chi Minh. Oh, and there's a dad seeking a church, a mom seeking to understand history, and kids exploring sex, drugs, and/or rock'n'roll. All in one package, a few months of life, and an addictive read. " --Dick Cluster, author of Obligations of the Bone and History of Havana

About the Author

Baron Wormser is the author of nine books of poetry, a poetry chapbook, and is the co-author of two books about teaching poetry. His fiction includes a book of short stories and two novels. He teaches in the Fairfield University MFA program and is the Founding Director of Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching in Franconia, New Hampshire. Wormser served as poet laureate of Maine from 2000 to 2005 and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Maine at Augusta in 2005. Learn more at baronwormser.com.