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Big Bang
Set in the 1950's, this epic, Warholian novel presents a brilliant and wholly original take on the years leading up to the Kennedy assassination.
Where were you when you first heard President Kennedy had been shot? This is a question most people can answer, even if the answer is "I wasn't born yet." In this epic novel, David Bowman makes the strong case that the shooting on November 22nd, 1963 was the major, defining turning point that catapulted the world into an entirely new stratosphere. It was the second big bang.
In this hilarious, lightning-fast historical novel, Bowman follows the most famous couples of the decade as their lives are torn apart by post-war's new normal. We see Lucille Ball's bizarre interrogation by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and Jackie Onassis' moonlight cruise with Frank Sinatra . We follow Norman Mailer and Arthur Miller as they attempt to get quickie divorces together at a loophole resort in Nevada and watch a young Howard Hunt snoop around South America with the newly founded CIA. A young Jimi Hendrix, now the epitome of counterculture cool, tries his luck as a clean cut army recruit.
Written with an almost documentary film like intensity, BIG BANG is a posthumous work from the award-winning author of Let the Dog Drive. A riotous account of a country, perhaps, at the beginning of the end.
Where were you when you first heard President Kennedy had been shot? This is a question most people can answer, even if the answer is "I wasn't born yet." In this epic novel, David Bowman makes the strong case that the shooting on November 22nd, 1963 was the major, defining turning point that catapulted the world into an entirely new stratosphere. It was the second big bang.
In this hilarious, lightning-fast historical novel, Bowman follows the most famous couples of the decade as their lives are torn apart by post-war's new normal. We see Lucille Ball's bizarre interrogation by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and Jackie Onassis' moonlight cruise with Frank Sinatra . We follow Norman Mailer and Arthur Miller as they attempt to get quickie divorces together at a loophole resort in Nevada and watch a young Howard Hunt snoop around South America with the newly founded CIA. A young Jimi Hendrix, now the epitome of counterculture cool, tries his luck as a clean cut army recruit.
Written with an almost documentary film like intensity, BIG BANG is a posthumous work from the award-winning author of Let the Dog Drive. A riotous account of a country, perhaps, at the beginning of the end.
595 pages, Hardcover
First published January 15, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
December 10, 2019
Where History Comes to Life
What a terrific work! The Big Bang is a docu-fiction, a kind of novel where fact and fiction is melded together to create a new alloy. It has something in common with Max Allan Collins' Nate Heller series which features a fictional character who hobnobs with historical characters. It has something in common with the quick acerbic witty chapters you find in Don Winslow's books. It has something in common with Tom Wolfe's documentarian books like Electric Kool-Aid. But, it's not really any one of those things.
Bowman takes a moment in history - the shots fired that fateful day in Dallas, the day when everyone remembers where they were. And he goes back a little over a decade to 1950 to trace how we got to that moment in time, historically, socially, etc. Beginning with a young Howard Hunt in Mexico City, a young JD Salinger becoming a recluse, a Jackie Bouvier and her sister Lee, a Dick Nixon in Southern California, a James Marshall Hendrix up in Seattle, a Greek shipping magnate, Elvis, Ann-Margaret, the Marilyn, the Beat Poets, Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller, weaving back and forth between these different characters, learning intimately who they were, how they were connected, and how a generation grew and changed.
Every single page is fascinating, complex, witty. So much to learn about all these people. This is one that deserves a better cover and far wider circulation.
What a terrific work! The Big Bang is a docu-fiction, a kind of novel where fact and fiction is melded together to create a new alloy. It has something in common with Max Allan Collins' Nate Heller series which features a fictional character who hobnobs with historical characters. It has something in common with the quick acerbic witty chapters you find in Don Winslow's books. It has something in common with Tom Wolfe's documentarian books like Electric Kool-Aid. But, it's not really any one of those things.
Bowman takes a moment in history - the shots fired that fateful day in Dallas, the day when everyone remembers where they were. And he goes back a little over a decade to 1950 to trace how we got to that moment in time, historically, socially, etc. Beginning with a young Howard Hunt in Mexico City, a young JD Salinger becoming a recluse, a Jackie Bouvier and her sister Lee, a Dick Nixon in Southern California, a James Marshall Hendrix up in Seattle, a Greek shipping magnate, Elvis, Ann-Margaret, the Marilyn, the Beat Poets, Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller, weaving back and forth between these different characters, learning intimately who they were, how they were connected, and how a generation grew and changed.
Every single page is fascinating, complex, witty. So much to learn about all these people. This is one that deserves a better cover and far wider circulation.
April 23, 2020
This one is a lot of fun. Bowman's 'Big Bang' covers the years 1950 all the way through the Kennedy assassination in 1963. A novel that fits the mold of non-fiction novelists such as Mailer, Delillo and Capote, 'Big Bang' incorporates the lives of dozens of celebrities, politicians, artists and businessmen. It is an impressively large narrative, but the real life celebrity of the characters makes it easy to follow.
The characters and events that take place in 'Big Bang' are so absurd that I constantly found myself pausing to fact check Bowman's story. It is shockingly accurate. Granted, this is a novel, so Bowman takes liberties with dialogue, but 'Big Bang' gives us a glimpse of life before the rise of social media and 24 hour newscasts; when the rich and famous could misbehave as they pleased and not worry about public scrutiny. Fair warning however: you might never want to read another sentence from Mailer or Burroughs after reading this.
The final chapters are dedicated to the coup of South Vietnam in 1961 and, of course, the Kennedy assassination in '63 (the ultimate 'big bang'). Again, the events covered here are historically accurate for the most part, and it makes for a harrowing read. The fact that 'Big Bang' honors historical accuracy makes it a heavier, and frankly, a better read than other novels such as Delillo's 'Libra' (which I am a huge fan of as well).
I am surprised by the muted response for this novel here on goodreads. If you are a fan of Delillo's work then you will love this one too. Well deserving of 5 stars.
The characters and events that take place in 'Big Bang' are so absurd that I constantly found myself pausing to fact check Bowman's story. It is shockingly accurate. Granted, this is a novel, so Bowman takes liberties with dialogue, but 'Big Bang' gives us a glimpse of life before the rise of social media and 24 hour newscasts; when the rich and famous could misbehave as they pleased and not worry about public scrutiny. Fair warning however: you might never want to read another sentence from Mailer or Burroughs after reading this.
The final chapters are dedicated to the coup of South Vietnam in 1961 and, of course, the Kennedy assassination in '63 (the ultimate 'big bang'). Again, the events covered here are historically accurate for the most part, and it makes for a harrowing read. The fact that 'Big Bang' honors historical accuracy makes it a heavier, and frankly, a better read than other novels such as Delillo's 'Libra' (which I am a huge fan of as well).
I am surprised by the muted response for this novel here on goodreads. If you are a fan of Delillo's work then you will love this one too. Well deserving of 5 stars.
November 12, 2018
My Sixth Grade class was in the library that Friday afternoon when Mr. Saffronoff led us back through Northwood Elementary School's ancient hallways to our classroom. We were being let out of school early. The president had been shot. As I walked home alone down the tree-lined street I was filled with vague and unsettling fears. Was America vulnerable and unprotected without the president?
It would be years before I revisited the America I grew up in, hoping to understand as an adult the events that had shaken my childhood sense of security--The Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of President Kennedy and later his brother Robert and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Vietnam War and the daily body count on the television news.
At 600+ pages, I was uncertain I wanted to read Big Bang, but the subject matter was too tempting.
The book begins with Jonathan Lethem's essay on his friend David Bowman, calling Big Bang "docu-fiction," "an epic novel about celebrity and power in the postwar twentieth century," a "mammoth project" about "everything and anything" Bowman knew about postwar America. The Foreword ends by telling readers that all of the people and events are based on "true history."
I found a densely woven correlation of events and personages so intricate as to astonish. Bowen had created a literary, "six degrees" link chart of interconnections that is all-embracing. Of course, the Kennedys are central along with all the necessary Washington figures, but also making appearances are J. D. Salinger, William S. Burroughs, Howard Hunt writing pulp fiction and planning the secret invasion of Guatemala, Richard Nixon and his Checkers speech, Carl Djerassi and Robert McNamara in an Ann Arbor book club, Lucille Ball facing the McCarthy House Un-American Activities Committee...
Just to give you a taste.
Bowen suggests that after the Atom Bomb, the second "big bang" to change the world was the Kennedy assassination. It changed a lot of things, for sure. It set off a chain of other political assassinations.
The novel was a journey into the world that shaped me.
I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
It would be years before I revisited the America I grew up in, hoping to understand as an adult the events that had shaken my childhood sense of security--The Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of President Kennedy and later his brother Robert and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Vietnam War and the daily body count on the television news.
At 600+ pages, I was uncertain I wanted to read Big Bang, but the subject matter was too tempting.
The book begins with Jonathan Lethem's essay on his friend David Bowman, calling Big Bang "docu-fiction," "an epic novel about celebrity and power in the postwar twentieth century," a "mammoth project" about "everything and anything" Bowman knew about postwar America. The Foreword ends by telling readers that all of the people and events are based on "true history."
I found a densely woven correlation of events and personages so intricate as to astonish. Bowen had created a literary, "six degrees" link chart of interconnections that is all-embracing. Of course, the Kennedys are central along with all the necessary Washington figures, but also making appearances are J. D. Salinger, William S. Burroughs, Howard Hunt writing pulp fiction and planning the secret invasion of Guatemala, Richard Nixon and his Checkers speech, Carl Djerassi and Robert McNamara in an Ann Arbor book club, Lucille Ball facing the McCarthy House Un-American Activities Committee...
Just to give you a taste.
Bowen suggests that after the Atom Bomb, the second "big bang" to change the world was the Kennedy assassination. It changed a lot of things, for sure. It set off a chain of other political assassinations.
The novel was a journey into the world that shaped me.
I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
June 13, 2019
A docu-fiction account of powerful people and events in the US leading up to JFK's assassination. A wonderful work!
I would rate it right up there with Don Dellio's novel, Underworld. There is actually a snippet in the book featuring Dellio in a nightclub hearing Lenny Bruce degrade Jackie Kennedy.
I would rate it right up there with Don Dellio's novel, Underworld. There is actually a snippet in the book featuring Dellio in a nightclub hearing Lenny Bruce degrade Jackie Kennedy.
March 9, 2019
Big Bang by David Bowman is a fairly long read that seems longer because it is not your typical straightforward narrative. While the comparison I have been seeing the most is to Delillo's Underworld (which I think is a fair comp) I would also include Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Big Bang is similar to both yet is distinctive from each.
The novel spans the years 1950 to 1963 and is, in that sense, very chronological, contrary to what some seem to think. As events happen during this chronology Bowman jumps both backward and forward to let us know what these people have done or, most often, will do. These asides are not difficult to follow. Within each chapter, which covers roughly 6 months to 2 years each, there are multiple snippets, for lack of a better term, each taking place in a different location. These may run from a couple of paragraphs to several pages. As you read you will find yourself making the transitions much more smoothly than at first. There are several key threads centered around specific figures and you just have to remember who is who. The placing of these snippets where they are do create some interesting juxtapositions.
I came to think of this as a mosaic. Each snippet is a single piece. There are many pieces of one hue and many of another. The hues, here, are the historical figures. While you're reading, especially early in the book, it is like being too close to a mosaic and being unable to discern what is what. Also think of a pointillist painting. Too close in and the picture disappears. As you read further in the book you start to see some form and some shapes. When you are finished, you can reflect on the whole and see a picture that makes far more sense than the individual pieces did while you were reading.
In recommending this book, I would say that if you are willing to be patient and wait for the picture to come into view you may well find it to be a powerful book. But I'm not sure that we are all going to see the same picture, so you may well find the picture to be a disappointment, but it won't be because there is nothing connecting all of the pieces. It is because it simply didn't appeal to you. I do believe that this book will be a rewarding experience for anyone who does more than "peruse" the book and throw out asinine comments like "Delillo fanfiction." At least don't advertise that it went over your head by playing pseudo-intellectual, just say you didn't like it. This will ultimately be one of those books that require more time and effort than some might want to give it. In today's world that makes sense for many people. If you like the challenge, even if there is no guarantee you'll love what you find, this could be a fun read for you. The writing itself is quite straightforward and won't present a problem. The mosaic-like nature of the snippets will be what could prevent an enjoyable read for some.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
The novel spans the years 1950 to 1963 and is, in that sense, very chronological, contrary to what some seem to think. As events happen during this chronology Bowman jumps both backward and forward to let us know what these people have done or, most often, will do. These asides are not difficult to follow. Within each chapter, which covers roughly 6 months to 2 years each, there are multiple snippets, for lack of a better term, each taking place in a different location. These may run from a couple of paragraphs to several pages. As you read you will find yourself making the transitions much more smoothly than at first. There are several key threads centered around specific figures and you just have to remember who is who. The placing of these snippets where they are do create some interesting juxtapositions.
I came to think of this as a mosaic. Each snippet is a single piece. There are many pieces of one hue and many of another. The hues, here, are the historical figures. While you're reading, especially early in the book, it is like being too close to a mosaic and being unable to discern what is what. Also think of a pointillist painting. Too close in and the picture disappears. As you read further in the book you start to see some form and some shapes. When you are finished, you can reflect on the whole and see a picture that makes far more sense than the individual pieces did while you were reading.
In recommending this book, I would say that if you are willing to be patient and wait for the picture to come into view you may well find it to be a powerful book. But I'm not sure that we are all going to see the same picture, so you may well find the picture to be a disappointment, but it won't be because there is nothing connecting all of the pieces. It is because it simply didn't appeal to you. I do believe that this book will be a rewarding experience for anyone who does more than "peruse" the book and throw out asinine comments like "Delillo fanfiction." At least don't advertise that it went over your head by playing pseudo-intellectual, just say you didn't like it. This will ultimately be one of those books that require more time and effort than some might want to give it. In today's world that makes sense for many people. If you like the challenge, even if there is no guarantee you'll love what you find, this could be a fun read for you. The writing itself is quite straightforward and won't present a problem. The mosaic-like nature of the snippets will be what could prevent an enjoyable read for some.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
December 9, 2018
First and foremost I would like to thank Netgalley for allowing me to review this novel. This being the lengthy tome by David Bowman who chronicles all of the happenings leading up to the deadly assassination of John F. Kennedy. Some things are true in this book, but it is woven in with satirical wit and sarcasm at every turn.
This was somewhat of a difficult book to get through since everything was just kind of scattered everywhere. There was no chronology, and the chapters announced a different place and time but was quick to change from there in mid chapter.
The story is littered with many famous names such as Marilyn Monroe, Jackson Pollack, J.D. Salinger, Richard Nixon, Bruce Lee, and Jimi Hendrix just to name a few.None of the people Bowman mentions are still living which made the story a bit interesting. I guess Bowman didn't have to get permission to write about these people since they are all dead.
I can't say that I would really recommend this book to anyone since it was so hard to get through. I don't want anyone to struggle the way I did or even have the urge to throw it against the wall because a book this size might leave quite a hole.
This was somewhat of a difficult book to get through since everything was just kind of scattered everywhere. There was no chronology, and the chapters announced a different place and time but was quick to change from there in mid chapter.
The story is littered with many famous names such as Marilyn Monroe, Jackson Pollack, J.D. Salinger, Richard Nixon, Bruce Lee, and Jimi Hendrix just to name a few.None of the people Bowman mentions are still living which made the story a bit interesting. I guess Bowman didn't have to get permission to write about these people since they are all dead.
I can't say that I would really recommend this book to anyone since it was so hard to get through. I don't want anyone to struggle the way I did or even have the urge to throw it against the wall because a book this size might leave quite a hole.
February 17, 2019
Read 30 pages. Don Delillo fanfiction. The Lethem essay comes across as low energy, like he wrote it more out of a sense of duty to his friend than any real enthusiasm for the material. And we're talking about Lethem here: dude can be wildly enthusiastic about some very odd stuff, and get you enthusiastic, too. Not here. I read past the essay, thinking maybe Lethem was just sad about his friend and couldn't muster the strength to geek out, but, no.
That said, I do believe there are some friends who would really dig this for its examination of 60s entertainers and politicians, the hipshaker Elvis, the moist-browed Nixon.
That said, I do believe there are some friends who would really dig this for its examination of 60s entertainers and politicians, the hipshaker Elvis, the moist-browed Nixon.
July 26, 2020
David Bowman wrote two hilarious novels (Let the Dog Drive and Bunny Modern) and one pretty good work of nonfiction (This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of the Talking Heads in the 20th Century) before dying of a cerebral hemorrhage in 2012 at the age of 54. I’m reading his posthumously published magnum opus BIG BANG (@littlebrown) and it’s a masterpiece!
August 25, 2023
both a history book and also if you want to learn history, don’t read this book. made me feel a bit like i was going insane
December 27, 2020
'When Pollock was at his most masterful, he painted the way Balanchine danced. Pollock arced his body. Pollock flung paint from wooden sticks. Pollock understood gravity and paint, and adjusted his wrist from the floor accordingly as he circled the canvas flinging paint. Splattering. Dribbling.'
This is a hugely ambitious 'nonfiction novel' that sprawls across the 1950s to the climactic death of Kennedy - an event, Bowman teases, which may not have been all it seemed. Bowman follows a dizzying array of characters through short vignettes: we grab them for a few paragraphs, let them go, and then pick them up chapters later, weaving in and out of each others' lives. Accompanying heavy hitters like Kennedy, Elvis, and Monroe, Bowman digs into musicians, authors, and politicians. One section is even told from the perspective of Kennedy's three-year-old daughter.
The real strength of this book is how Bowman obscures the boundaries between fact and fiction, including footnotes and the occasional authorial interruption to maintain the illusion that this is a documentary, while putting words into characters' mouths which they could never have spoken.
Instead of following a single life, 'Big Bang' evokes an era; this is the strength of the book, but also makes it hard to dig into any one character. At times, the volume of people makes their voices blend together, and by the end, I found the changing array of characters a little tiring. However, this is still an extraordinarily researched and darkly comic portrait of a lost era.
This is a hugely ambitious 'nonfiction novel' that sprawls across the 1950s to the climactic death of Kennedy - an event, Bowman teases, which may not have been all it seemed. Bowman follows a dizzying array of characters through short vignettes: we grab them for a few paragraphs, let them go, and then pick them up chapters later, weaving in and out of each others' lives. Accompanying heavy hitters like Kennedy, Elvis, and Monroe, Bowman digs into musicians, authors, and politicians. One section is even told from the perspective of Kennedy's three-year-old daughter.
The real strength of this book is how Bowman obscures the boundaries between fact and fiction, including footnotes and the occasional authorial interruption to maintain the illusion that this is a documentary, while putting words into characters' mouths which they could never have spoken.
Instead of following a single life, 'Big Bang' evokes an era; this is the strength of the book, but also makes it hard to dig into any one character. At times, the volume of people makes their voices blend together, and by the end, I found the changing array of characters a little tiring. However, this is still an extraordinarily researched and darkly comic portrait of a lost era.
March 25, 2019
The late Bowman demonstrates that his death was a real loss to literature with this sprawling, insanely ambitious soi-distant "nonfiction novel" that portrays America year-by-year from 1950 to '63 -- the "Big Bang" being, primarily, those few seconds in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Bowman tells the story through a wild cast of people, mostly very famous, with key recurring characters being Richard Nixon, E. Howard Hunt, Jackie Kennedy, a young Jimi Hendrix, Arthur Miller, and Jackson Pollock. The Cold War, naturally, is the key backdrop, especially as expressed through the U.S. relationship with Vietnam (before it was "war"). But there are pocket histories of multiple facets of art, music and culture, and some of these takes on the famous -- also including Bruce Lee, Marilyn Monroe, and Aristotle Onassis -- are damned near indelible. Great fun, with a brisk pace and sparky dialogue, and surprisingly deep at times, though I wish Bowman's cast included more women and more nonwhite people.
February 23, 2019
I'm only partway through it, but it's a powerhouse of rich gossipy historical fiction (1950s), finding the connections between disparate characters and events from Jimi Hendrix's introduction to the blues to E Howard Hunt's invasion of Guatemala. Plus, of course, the Kennedys and their paramours. It's a tour de force of research, writing, and imagination, and it should share the shelf with Tom Wolfe and Hunter S Thompson.
December 8, 2019
This book kind of blew my mind.
October 19, 2024
It had some moments but overall felt a jumbled, disconnected, romanticized mess. I found some of the historical references that checked out to be truly astonishing: did you know that on Election Day 1960, after casting his vote, Richard Nixon pulled a spontaneous head-fake on his aides and schedule for the day and drove to Tijuana? Given the book clocks in around 600 pages, the back half (post-1956) felt rushed, while the first half felt like a silly slog. Sometimes silly’s fun though. Good ending too.
May 3, 2019
This book is very good, if possible it seems original talking about events and people we have heard described for decades. Covering the period of the fifties up until the killing of President Kennedy, Bowman presents a history ( fictionalized, maybe, partly??) of the years of the early Big Bang.
With a wide cast of characters that ranges from young Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee, to the Diem Brothers in Vietnam, Arthur and Marilyn, Howard Hunt, Richard Nixon, Luci & Desi, to, of course, JFK and Jackie, this book is almost 600 pages on a speed train. It is a mix of known history, suggested and inferred history, and what one might call history as it might or � should � have been.
Much of the scandal we have heard about is included, the truth is we will never know all of the facts, but this is as good an idea of all that happened as anything else.
Bowman writes a bit like those stoned conversations you had on late college nights. One subject bleeding into the next on an eternal train of thought. Have you ever got to a point in a conversation and wondered � how did we end up talking about this?� This is how Bowman writes, everything connects, until in some sort of fever dream it all seems to make sense.
Centered on the idea of � The Two Bangs �, the postwar population explosion, and the Bang of November, 1963, this book is a classic that should have been written fifty years ago.
I first became aware of this book by a New Yorker piece by Jonathan Lethem about his friend, the author, who died too young and, too unknown. Lethem’s essay, included as a foreword, is heartfelt, admitting feeling exasperated by his friend in life and then describing the shock he felt when he heard that the book he had been aware of as an unmanageable, unfinished project would be published in this form.
The book is a fitting reminder that genius often lies under the surface of pain and confusion. This is a grand piece of writing.
With a wide cast of characters that ranges from young Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee, to the Diem Brothers in Vietnam, Arthur and Marilyn, Howard Hunt, Richard Nixon, Luci & Desi, to, of course, JFK and Jackie, this book is almost 600 pages on a speed train. It is a mix of known history, suggested and inferred history, and what one might call history as it might or � should � have been.
Much of the scandal we have heard about is included, the truth is we will never know all of the facts, but this is as good an idea of all that happened as anything else.
Bowman writes a bit like those stoned conversations you had on late college nights. One subject bleeding into the next on an eternal train of thought. Have you ever got to a point in a conversation and wondered � how did we end up talking about this?� This is how Bowman writes, everything connects, until in some sort of fever dream it all seems to make sense.
Centered on the idea of � The Two Bangs �, the postwar population explosion, and the Bang of November, 1963, this book is a classic that should have been written fifty years ago.
I first became aware of this book by a New Yorker piece by Jonathan Lethem about his friend, the author, who died too young and, too unknown. Lethem’s essay, included as a foreword, is heartfelt, admitting feeling exasperated by his friend in life and then describing the shock he felt when he heard that the book he had been aware of as an unmanageable, unfinished project would be published in this form.
The book is a fitting reminder that genius often lies under the surface of pain and confusion. This is a grand piece of writing.
October 25, 2024
Rec. by:
Rec. for: Amateur historians and veterans of the tumultuous latter half of the 20th Century
's sprawling posthumous novel begins with one of the biggest bangs of the 20th Century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, just a few short months after I myself was born.
There are other bangs both big and small in this book—from the explosion of births in the U.S. after WWII (more commonly known as the "baby boom," but a boom's as good as a bang to Bowman) to the bang of ' pistol as he (perhaps inadvertently) , from the many celebrities banging other celebs (it is fortunate that all or almost all of the people having sex in this book are now deceased) to a subterranean nuclear accident in Kentucky that irradiates one during his brief stint in the U.S. military... but the Kennedy assassination (the first one, that is) is the flash point for Bowman's novel, and the point to which he will eventually return.
Eventually.
WIKIPEDIA GONE WILD
(no, not that ) crams in more names-per-page than I've ever seen in a novel. You'd better already know a whole lot about The Sixties™—and about the history and public figures of the 1950s, as well—or you're going to be very, very lost, I'm afraid.
Is what Bowman says reliable, though? Remember, this is still fiction... and although Bowman puts forth every historical assertion in with absolute authority, there are still many places where he was (almost) certainly just making stuff up.
Probably.
I am pretty sure this bit was real, though:
Bowman's attention flits from topic to topic, subject to subject, frequently and without apology. You're simply expected to keep up. Although occasionally he does dive into a subject of interest to him—I was impressed by, for example, those two solid pages (from pp.194-196) where he focused on and 's wife just... kissing on the stairs.
And this observation, which was true up through the 1970s as well, as I can attest from my own hours in front of the boob tube in that decade:
*
*
I was turned on to Bowman's novel by its Introduction, which wrote and chose to reproduce in a collection of his own called (an amazing little book in its own right, by the way). Lethem's "David Bowman and the Furry-Girl School of American Fiction" is a heartfelt eulogy that serves well to slide you into the experience of Bowman's kaleidoscopic prose—an experience that, like a (a project which also pops up in ), you might not want to repeat... but certainly won't forget.
Rec. for: Amateur historians and veterans of the tumultuous latter half of the 20th Century
The streets are lined with camera crews
Everywhere he goes is news
Today is different. Today is not the same.
Today I make the action—take snapshot into the light...
—from "Family Snapshot" (1980), by
's sprawling posthumous novel begins with one of the biggest bangs of the 20th Century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, just a few short months after I myself was born.
There are other bangs both big and small in this book—from the explosion of births in the U.S. after WWII (more commonly known as the "baby boom," but a boom's as good as a bang to Bowman) to the bang of ' pistol as he (perhaps inadvertently) , from the many celebrities banging other celebs (it is fortunate that all or almost all of the people having sex in this book are now deceased) to a subterranean nuclear accident in Kentucky that irradiates one during his brief stint in the U.S. military... but the Kennedy assassination (the first one, that is) is the flash point for Bowman's novel, and the point to which he will eventually return.
Eventually.
WIKIPEDIA GONE WILD
(no, not that ) crams in more names-per-page than I've ever seen in a novel. You'd better already know a whole lot about The Sixties™—and about the history and public figures of the 1950s, as well—or you're going to be very, very lost, I'm afraid.
Is what Bowman says reliable, though? Remember, this is still fiction... and although Bowman puts forth every historical assertion in with absolute authority, there are still many places where he was (almost) certainly just making stuff up.
Probably.
I am pretty sure this bit was real, though:
It's also easy in the fog of time to confuse the with . Congressmen on the HUAC had been rooting out Communist spies all during the late 1940s. Joseph McCarthy was a senator, not a member of the House. He was a forty-four-year-old opportunistic Johnny-come-lately from Wisconsin who farted onto the national scene in the 1950s after giving a Lincoln Day speech to the Women's Republican Club of , where he waved a sheet of paper in the air, howling that it contained the names of '205' Communists who worked in the State Department.
He didn't have 205 names. He was lying.
It is right-wing irony that the accomplishments of the HUAC are credited to 'McCarthyism.' He and they are now and forever pathetic Siamese twins.
—p.101
Bowman's attention flits from topic to topic, subject to subject, frequently and without apology. You're simply expected to keep up. Although occasionally he does dive into a subject of interest to him—I was impressed by, for example, those two solid pages (from pp.194-196) where he focused on and 's wife just... kissing on the stairs.
And this observation, which was true up through the 1970s as well, as I can attest from my own hours in front of the boob tube in that decade:
In 1957, Lawrence Welk was a well-watched ABC television bandleader as well as a fluent accordionist. Even in 1957, Lawrence Welk was perhaps the squarest man in America.
—p.295
*
Back in 1960, you were old if you were sixty-one. It was like being seventy-five today.Ouch... as a sixty-one-year-old today myself, that hit rather hard. And this was not the only time that Bowman would draw a distinction between aging then vs. aging in the 21st Century... he comes back to the phrase "born in the nineteenth century" over and over, as a way of underlining the differences between the people who were in power in the 1950s and those who were rising to power.
—p.394
*
I was turned on to Bowman's novel by its Introduction, which wrote and chose to reproduce in a collection of his own called (an amazing little book in its own right, by the way). Lethem's "David Bowman and the Furry-Girl School of American Fiction" is a heartfelt eulogy that serves well to slide you into the experience of Bowman's kaleidoscopic prose—an experience that, like a (a project which also pops up in ), you might not want to repeat... but certainly won't forget.
April 1, 2019
I bought this initially because Jonathan Lethem wrote the forward. This is the only book I've read by Bowman. It was published posthumously after years of the author pitching it. As the other reviews state, it is a sprawling, overarching partly fictional account of select 1950's/60's cultural figures leading up to the Kennedy assasination. The assassination itself has little to do with the book. I assume that most of the stories here are only partially true. That's fine -I haven't researched any of the characters lives The stories all seem plausible....rooted in fact but enhanced with
colorful anecdotes. It doesn't matter if they are true. The author certainly knows a lot about his subjects -William Burroughs, Richard Nixon, Jimi Hendrix, Jack Kennedy among others. He crafts each personality with a witty projection of how they may have operated "behind the scenes" . The story jumps around constantly, but that's the only way this could work. Much of the narrative reminds me of drawings by Raymond Pettibon-twisting entertainment and political celebrity antics into funny and cynical vignettes. Pettibon is funnier and darker, Bowman is voyeuristic. Don't speed read it or try and plow through it in a few sittings.
colorful anecdotes. It doesn't matter if they are true. The author certainly knows a lot about his subjects -William Burroughs, Richard Nixon, Jimi Hendrix, Jack Kennedy among others. He crafts each personality with a witty projection of how they may have operated "behind the scenes" . The story jumps around constantly, but that's the only way this could work. Much of the narrative reminds me of drawings by Raymond Pettibon-twisting entertainment and political celebrity antics into funny and cynical vignettes. Pettibon is funnier and darker, Bowman is voyeuristic. Don't speed read it or try and plow through it in a few sittings.
October 8, 2019
A number of famous characters of the 1960s and 1970s are profiled in brief recurring historical vignettes, including JFK, Jacqueline Kennedy, Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, Norman Mailer, Howard Hunt, Richard Nixon, Aristotle Onassis, Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, Madame Nhu, Nikita Kruschev, Fidel Castro and a host of others. Somehow the author either obtained or created a lot of dialogue with these and the other people he wrote about. The vignettes break abruptly into other vignettes, so the flow is choppy. But it also keeps the pace up and he offers enough content to hold your interest. Some of the content is decidedly morbid and graphic. A lot of it portrays powerful people abusing their power. You don't come away with much respect for the characters portrayed or hope for the future of humanity. Bowman excelled at describing the dark sides of high-profile people.
April 7, 2019
Finctional book about non fictional characters. This book follows the very real plot lines of the late 1950's to November 1963. Bay of Pigs, Nixon/Kennedy debates, assorted conversations between Jaqualine Kennedy "Jacks" to her sister Lee. So much back story to the events of those days. It did take a while to read and I have to assume that since most of the players are no longer with us I have to assume much of the conversations are the work of fiction while referencing real events. I have always found this period to be fascinating and this book did not disappoint me in the way it wove in and out of the days, months and years of this time. Sadly, the author passed away before this book came into print. I would have loved a dialogue with him to discuss the hapennings he wrote about.
July 26, 2020
Fucking phenomenal. Funny, sprawling, tragic, deeply, deeeeeply weird, in a way that only truth sprinkled with the truest fiction can ever be. God, this is one of those books that makes you sad you'll never be able to read it for the first time ever again. I could see this being too long and vast of a book for some, I'm not usually a fan of novels with massive casts of characters sprawling thousands of miles of distance, but this book just has this air of madness and confusion around it where it feels like, if you're not entirely following everything, that's OK, cause the characters are probably just as confused too. RIP David Bowman, what an absolute legend
Now come on cousin *drops to knees* let's CREEP a little bit
Now come on cousin *drops to knees* let's CREEP a little bit
August 16, 2019
Posthumously published, this kaleidoscopic non-fiction novel finds the obscure connections between historical figures and the dimly-remembered details of fateful decisions and accidents during the decade from 1953-63 -- the decade of the Baby Boom/Big Bang -- and how it created our world today. Extensive dives into the imagined interior lives of real people -- Arthur Miller, E. Howard Hunt, Alger Hiss, the Ngo Diem family of Vietnam, Robert MacNamara, William S. Burroughs and especially "Jack and Jacks" Kennedy -- turn these icons into the people who must have existed.
Shelved as 'abandoned'
February 9, 2019This is like Wikipedia dramatized. If you’re a historian into the era, you might love it. Jonathan Lethem’s introduction and the Prologue were sensational, but the novel eventually lost me in its madcap connecting of endless trivia, even with an emphasis on the literary giants of the era.
July 18, 2020
From the atomic bomb to the killing of President Kennedy, Bowman takes us through a cultural and political history of the U.S. in those 18 years. Compulsively readable and anybody who name checks Howlin' Wolf and the best song off his final album, Watergate Blues, earns big points from me.
March 12, 2019
Most interesting novel I’ve read in years.
April 6, 2019
A snarky diary of the Ike through JFK years,
historical fiction with a Zinn-like zen of political truth.
historical fiction with a Zinn-like zen of political truth.
November 19, 2019
Great sardonic review of 20th century world.
June 27, 2020
Tour-de-force novel, fictionalising the foreground and background of the Kennedy assassination, featuring a cast of the great, the good and the despotic.
August 13, 2021
Like a psychedelic, pop-culture fever dream; highly recommend
December 8, 2022
Big Bang is a highly entertaining cheeky, and informative novel of America probably at the height of it's empire, being the 1950's and early 60's right up to the Kennedy assassination . The 50's are seen as a somewhat wholesome era of US history, but the author uncovers some of the corruption and sordid activates that were not widely known at the time. Bowman does this by following the misadventures of some of the leading lights, literati, artists and political types of the era. The history is based on fact, but being a work of fiction, the author takes some liberties with dialogue. I am so glad of this because some of the dialogue is extremely funny.
There are really no main characters in this work, which moves between them from chapter to chapter. One of the main characters is John and Robert Kennedy and their plans to take the presidency. As you probably know John would be considered a player now a days having flings with many beauties like Marylin Monroe who has a large part in this book too. He had a somewhat open marriage with Jackie. It is not really gone into in the book, but I think Jackie accepted the fact that John would have liaisons with other woman. Just part of being a upper class, political family, it was not unexpected. .It seems she was open to some extra marital action herself , spending a lot of time with the Shipping magnate Onassis on his yacht. No scenes of them actually hooking up, but it makes one wonder.
Another interesting character is Robert McNamara who became secretary of defense under Kennedy and would lead that agency during most of the Vietnam war. In the book he is still at Ford Motor Company as a wunderkind who helped change the fortunes around for them. One interesting passage concerns his book club with other people of his class. In which he would correct people and lecture them at these social events, some pretty cringe worthy stuff. Sounds like a perfect pompous type for a high position in Washington.
Another interesting character was E Howard Hunts who would lead the failed break in at the DNC offices at the Watergate hotel, which is talked about later in the book. he also may have had something to do with the JFK killing. Hunt was a CIA officer at the era we are speaking of. He was generally serving in Central and South America helping to cause all kinds of mischief. Including the Bay of Pigs debacle in Cuba. We find out that Desi Arnaze, Lucy's husband donated to that cause, being an anti Castro Cuban,. Also when Hunt was in Mexico city he use to socialize with William Burroughs the beat author. Unlikely pair that. I guess they both were authors after all.
Speaking of authors there is JD Salinger and the beginnings of him fading from the world. Also Norman Mailer who turns out to be quite a lout. Also Arthur Miller's travails are a major focus with his marriage to Marylin Monroe and the mess that eventually became. Fame can have a very toxic effect on a marriage. Great behind the scenes detail on Monroe's last film The Misfits, which Miller wrote the screen play to. What a mess, Marylin among others were not happy about the script and wanted to keep on revising it. This was one of the friction points in their marriage.
One of the major things a really liked about this tome was all the facts you can learn about history in an easy digestible way, Like some of the facts I presented earlier in my review. O yes one fact I forgot to put down I find really interesting is about the Watergate which becomes somewhat of a character itself, sorry I digress. It was designed by one of Mussolini's favorite architects , nice factoid there.
A nice feature of this book is it is written in bullet points. So if you are tired or do not have a lot of time to read you can just read small portions with no problem. There is no real plot line. There is an over all theme about America in it's heyday, but you could probably open the book up at any page and have no problem following the story at all.
One of the great tragedies of this book is the author David Bowman passed away at a young age before this novel was published. Just thinking of more of the great books he had yet to write. His friend Jonathan Lethem does a great introduction and beautiful tribute to his friend in this edition of the book. One point he brings up is how many unknown and truly talented authors are there out there, either dead or alive, that we have no idea of ? Just sad to think of what could have been, but at least we have Bowman's magnum opus.
There are really no main characters in this work, which moves between them from chapter to chapter. One of the main characters is John and Robert Kennedy and their plans to take the presidency. As you probably know John would be considered a player now a days having flings with many beauties like Marylin Monroe who has a large part in this book too. He had a somewhat open marriage with Jackie. It is not really gone into in the book, but I think Jackie accepted the fact that John would have liaisons with other woman. Just part of being a upper class, political family, it was not unexpected. .It seems she was open to some extra marital action herself , spending a lot of time with the Shipping magnate Onassis on his yacht. No scenes of them actually hooking up, but it makes one wonder.
Another interesting character is Robert McNamara who became secretary of defense under Kennedy and would lead that agency during most of the Vietnam war. In the book he is still at Ford Motor Company as a wunderkind who helped change the fortunes around for them. One interesting passage concerns his book club with other people of his class. In which he would correct people and lecture them at these social events, some pretty cringe worthy stuff. Sounds like a perfect pompous type for a high position in Washington.
Another interesting character was E Howard Hunts who would lead the failed break in at the DNC offices at the Watergate hotel, which is talked about later in the book. he also may have had something to do with the JFK killing. Hunt was a CIA officer at the era we are speaking of. He was generally serving in Central and South America helping to cause all kinds of mischief. Including the Bay of Pigs debacle in Cuba. We find out that Desi Arnaze, Lucy's husband donated to that cause, being an anti Castro Cuban,. Also when Hunt was in Mexico city he use to socialize with William Burroughs the beat author. Unlikely pair that. I guess they both were authors after all.
Speaking of authors there is JD Salinger and the beginnings of him fading from the world. Also Norman Mailer who turns out to be quite a lout. Also Arthur Miller's travails are a major focus with his marriage to Marylin Monroe and the mess that eventually became. Fame can have a very toxic effect on a marriage. Great behind the scenes detail on Monroe's last film The Misfits, which Miller wrote the screen play to. What a mess, Marylin among others were not happy about the script and wanted to keep on revising it. This was one of the friction points in their marriage.
One of the major things a really liked about this tome was all the facts you can learn about history in an easy digestible way, Like some of the facts I presented earlier in my review. O yes one fact I forgot to put down I find really interesting is about the Watergate which becomes somewhat of a character itself, sorry I digress. It was designed by one of Mussolini's favorite architects , nice factoid there.
A nice feature of this book is it is written in bullet points. So if you are tired or do not have a lot of time to read you can just read small portions with no problem. There is no real plot line. There is an over all theme about America in it's heyday, but you could probably open the book up at any page and have no problem following the story at all.
One of the great tragedies of this book is the author David Bowman passed away at a young age before this novel was published. Just thinking of more of the great books he had yet to write. His friend Jonathan Lethem does a great introduction and beautiful tribute to his friend in this edition of the book. One point he brings up is how many unknown and truly talented authors are there out there, either dead or alive, that we have no idea of ? Just sad to think of what could have been, but at least we have Bowman's magnum opus.
January 16, 2022
"Margaret Salinger was seven years old in November 1963 and was a third grader in Meridan Elementary School in New Hampshire. The town of Meridan sat in the frosty gulag of the U.S.A. -
Desolate. Endless snow. Many citizens inbred.
After recess on the Friday before Thanksgiving, the school principal, Mrs. Spaulding, entered the classroom and asked Margaret's teacher, Mrs. Beaupre, to come out in the hallway... Mrs. Beaupre returned to the classroom and said, 'Children, President Kennedy has just been shot.'
The classroom erupted with agitated kids. Several boys jumped on their chairs and began applauding and hooting, acting out the views of their New Hampshire parents. In fact, during recess an hour before, six big kids had circled Margaret. Each one took her turn kicking the younger child. As an adult, Margaret would describe these girls as 'some pack of feral Rockettes.' At least once a week, they kicked Margaret during recess. Margaret would one day ask an older boy, 'Why do the big girls hate me?'
'Because your dad is a Communist.'" - Dave Bowman, Big Bang (2019), pp. 11-12.
Dave bowman begins his epic account of American cultural and political history during the 1950s and early 60s by posing answers to a question every almost every American over 60 has encountered during their lives: Where were you when you heard John F. Kennedy had been shot? Bowman emphasizes that everyone has an answer, even if that answer is (like me) "I wasn't born yet." My mother was only four years old the day of the assassination, and my dad had just turned eleven only a few days before. Being such a pivotal moment in the lives of my parents and many of their friends and older relatives, I was eager to read what I thought was an account that delved into the reactions of ordinary people to that tragic day. What I soon discovered was a different, but also intriguing, method of story telling that slowly drew me in and made it difficult to put the book down once I had opened it.
Subtitled "A Nonfiction Novel", Big Bang draws on the best work of authors like Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Joan Didion in the tradition of New Journalism, which presented true events in the style of a fictional narrative. Bowman illuminates such historical figures as Kennedy, Norman Mailer, Jackson Pollock, Pat Nixon, Jackie Kennedy, Ngo Dinh Diem, Howard Hunt, and others, to bring a fresh spin on how the reader views them in the context of American history. The chapters are broken up into bite-sized chunks, usually no more than half a page long, that cut through any metaphors or symbolism and plunge the reader directly into the action.
Overall, this is an excellent book that gets to the heart of both the stifling conservatism of 1950s America, and both the hope and horror that reared their heads throughout the 1960s afterward.
Desolate. Endless snow. Many citizens inbred.
After recess on the Friday before Thanksgiving, the school principal, Mrs. Spaulding, entered the classroom and asked Margaret's teacher, Mrs. Beaupre, to come out in the hallway... Mrs. Beaupre returned to the classroom and said, 'Children, President Kennedy has just been shot.'
The classroom erupted with agitated kids. Several boys jumped on their chairs and began applauding and hooting, acting out the views of their New Hampshire parents. In fact, during recess an hour before, six big kids had circled Margaret. Each one took her turn kicking the younger child. As an adult, Margaret would describe these girls as 'some pack of feral Rockettes.' At least once a week, they kicked Margaret during recess. Margaret would one day ask an older boy, 'Why do the big girls hate me?'
'Because your dad is a Communist.'" - Dave Bowman, Big Bang (2019), pp. 11-12.
Dave bowman begins his epic account of American cultural and political history during the 1950s and early 60s by posing answers to a question every almost every American over 60 has encountered during their lives: Where were you when you heard John F. Kennedy had been shot? Bowman emphasizes that everyone has an answer, even if that answer is (like me) "I wasn't born yet." My mother was only four years old the day of the assassination, and my dad had just turned eleven only a few days before. Being such a pivotal moment in the lives of my parents and many of their friends and older relatives, I was eager to read what I thought was an account that delved into the reactions of ordinary people to that tragic day. What I soon discovered was a different, but also intriguing, method of story telling that slowly drew me in and made it difficult to put the book down once I had opened it.
Subtitled "A Nonfiction Novel", Big Bang draws on the best work of authors like Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Joan Didion in the tradition of New Journalism, which presented true events in the style of a fictional narrative. Bowman illuminates such historical figures as Kennedy, Norman Mailer, Jackson Pollock, Pat Nixon, Jackie Kennedy, Ngo Dinh Diem, Howard Hunt, and others, to bring a fresh spin on how the reader views them in the context of American history. The chapters are broken up into bite-sized chunks, usually no more than half a page long, that cut through any metaphors or symbolism and plunge the reader directly into the action.
Overall, this is an excellent book that gets to the heart of both the stifling conservatism of 1950s America, and both the hope and horror that reared their heads throughout the 1960s afterward.
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