Boston Boy: Growing up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions - Softcover

Hentoff, Nat

Softcover

ISBN 10: 096796752X ISBN 13: 9780967967523

Publisher: Paul Dry Books, 2001

Synopsis

Boston Boy is Nat Hentoff's memoir of growing up in the Roxbury section of Boston in the 1930s and 1940s. He grapples with Judaism and anti-Semitism. He develops a passion for outspoken journalism and First Amendment freedom of speech. And he discovers his love of jazz music as he follows, and is befriended by, the great jazz musicians of the day, including Duke Ellington and Lester Young among others.

"This memoir of [Hentoff's] youth should be appreciated not only by adults who grew up through the fires of their own youthful rebellion, but by those restless young people who are now bringing their own views and questions to the world they are inheriting. They could learn from this example that rebels can be gentle as well as enraged and compassionate in their commitment."—New York Times Book Review

"Nat Hentoff knows jazz. And it comes alive in this wonderful, touching memoir."—Ken Burns, creator of the PBS series Jazz

"[A] charmingly bittersweet memoir."—Boston Globe

"This is a touching book about a painful, wonderful time in Boston...I loved it."—Anthony Lewis

Nat Hentoff was born in Boston in 1925 and lived there until he moved to New York City at the age of twenty-eight. For many years he has written a weekly column for the Village Voice. His column for the Washington Times is syndicated in 250 newspapers, and he writes regularly about music for the Wall Street Journal. For twenty-five years, he was a staff writer for the New Yorker and for many years was a columnist for the Washington Post. His numerous books cover subjects ranging from jazz music and musicians to civil rights and civil liberties, on which he is a recognized authority. He was jazz critic at Down Beat and has written liner notes for many important jazz recordings. His work has won him honors not only from the music industry, but also from the American Bar Association and the American Library Association.

About this title

About the Author:

Nat Hentoff is a long-time civil rights commentator and a prolific author and journalist whose weekly columns are published in The Village Voice and The Washington Times. He's worked as a columnist for the Washington Post and as a reporter for The New Yorker.

From Publishers Weekly:

There are well-etched scenes, amusing episodes and even some surprises in this evocative memoir of growing up Jewish in the Boston of the 1930s and '40s. From the moment he eats a salami sandwich on Yom Kippur in defiance of his Orthodox neighbors, to organizing a union among the boys in a candy store, and later earning his stripes as a journalist, the author deftly recalls the events and people that influenced him. Hentoff, known variously for his Village Voice column, his novels and books about politics, civil liberties and jazz, here looks at his youth and the forces that shaped his views as a staunch libertarian, including a crusading woman publisher and the jazzmen he came to admire. Told with frankness and gently self-deprecating wit, Hentoff's recollections pleasantly define a very particular place in time and how that place formed this interesting man.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Paul Dry Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 096796752X
• ISBN 13: 9780967967523
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 212