THE FREAKS CAME OUT TO WRITE: The Definitive History of The Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture, by Tricia RomanoTricia Romano’s oral history of The Village Voice, the most important alternative weekly of the 20th century, is a well-made disco ball of a book — it’s big, discursive, ardent, intellectual and flecked with gossip.
A lot of the people Romano interviewed, former Voice writers, editors, photographers, designers and cartoonists, will probably wince, at times, at the text.
Humiliations are recalled; toes are trod upon; old hostilities have been kept warm, as if on little Sterno cans of pique.
Founded in 1955 by a group of writers and editors that included Norman Mailer, The Voice was intended to be a newspaper for downtown, defined as below 14th Street in Manhattan.
For many oddballs and lefties and malcontents out in America’s hinterlands (I was among them), finding their first copy of The Voice was more than eye-opening.
Persons:
Tricia Romano Tricia Romano’s, Romano, Humiliations, Norman Mailer, ”
Organizations:
The, U.S . Postal Service, New York Post
Locations:
Manhattan, New York