Talking Heads: 77

By John Domini

"John Domini has brilliantly turned one of literary fiction's neatest tricks: he has vividly and accurately evoked a past time and milieu--the alternative cultural scene of the mid- 70s--and in the process he has illuminated our own times with dazzling clarity. Talking Heads: 77 also manages to be both cutting-edge innovative and splendidly readable. This book is a flat-out delight." --Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain , Pulitzer Prize in Fiction 1993 " Talking Heads: 77 reminds us of a generation's crushing loss of idealism. Through an impassioned post-Watergate journalist whose interior angst is articulated in illusory news columns for a fantasized issue of his alternative newspaper, John Domini captures the kind of innocence it once took to believe in our quixotic convictions, to believe we could invoke change, to believe we couldn't be perverted or corrupted. Simultaneously he recreates the visceral disillusionment that had engulfed many of us by the time the 70's were over." --Cris Mazza, author of Girl Beside Him and Is It Sexual Harassment Yet? "John Domini is fiction's own Greil Marcus, revealing the secret history that has made us all; in Talking Heads: 77 , Kit Viddich is our tour guide, a reporter raking the muck to find the ore, and exploring the cellars, by starlight. The cellars, the basement, the closet, the underground--John Domini knows that the dank oubliettes of our world are the places of darkness and death, and also the wellsprings, the very life of our culture." --Brian Bouldrey author of Love, the Magician , The Genius of Desire and the essay collection Monster: Adventures in American Machismo

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1888996463
• ISBN13: 9781888996463
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Red Hen Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Experimental Form

John Domini presents a world where gritty characters and their ordinary, domestic drives interfere with post-modern idealism. Employing an experimental format by mixing newspaper columns with narrative prose, Domini reflects not only Kit Vidditch's moral dilemma, but also the nature of a radical journalist: to break free of tradition and expose new thought. An infusion of 70s punk-techno culture, ethinic diversity, and underground journalism, Talking Heads:77 turns normal upside-down. With boundless energy and innovative storytelling, this book is sure to stir discussion.

Anna Filameno

I found this an exciting book to read. The characters jump up at you and the dialogue is fresh and original. The depth of character is absorbing and there is something very profound in reading about a character who is searching for something.

Getting to the Bottom of Things

Domini's latest book carves out characters so stubbornly vivid that they achieve the rare feat of lodging themselves in one's consciousness long after the final page. Kit Viddich-- protagonist, muckraker, Minnesota ranch boy--deals with the slings and arrows of late-seventies political journalism abetted by a cast of diverse yet deeply recognizable figures. Whether it's his Brahmin wife and her Cape-Cod-loving family, corrupt politicos, corrupted prisoners, or the unlikely crew of his struggling magazine, it is the fascination with these characters and the ways they interact that draw us into the story time and again. Yet this richness of characterization does not undermine the strength of the plot, rather it helps propel us through the many-turning corridors of the storyline and drives us deeper and deeper beneath the surface of Kit's personal and professional dilemmas. Like any good investigator, you will want to follow. You will want to uncover what is there.

smart

A very thoughtful, character driven book with a running - and novel - inner dialog. Yet there's an unexpected ferocity to the story that propels it to its redemptive finish - and made me stay up way past my bedtime to finish it. It's not often that I find a book that mixes intellect, experimentation and pit-of-the-stomach tension the way this one does.

We need more John Dominis in our literary landscape

John Domini does it again. He's the real thing, and we really do need more writers like him. In this novel, he creates a topsy turvy world featuring a large, colorful cast of characters, and composed of healthy doses of politics, subterfuge, literature, journalism, and sex, and somehow ties everything together with style, wit, and intelligence. There are no loose ends, and his characters are memorable -- originals, all of them. With this exploration of the seventies, Domini shows us how deeply he cares about the state of the world as it is now, and those of us who inhabit it.