Alec Wilkinson

A true American original is brought to life in this rich and lively portrait of Pete Seeger, who, with his musical grace and inextinguishable passion for social justice, transformed folk singing into a high form of peaceful protest in the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on his extensive talks with Seeger, New Yorker writer Alec Wilkinson lets us experience the man's unique blend of independence and commitment, charm, courage, energy, and belief in human equality and American democracy.We see Seeger instilled with a love of music by his parents, both classically trained musicians; as a teenager, hearing real folk music for the first time; and as a young man, singing with Woody Guthrie and with the Weavers. We learn of his harassment by the government for his political beliefs and his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1949. And we follow his engagement with civil rights, the peace movement, and the environment--especially his work saving the Hudson River and building the ship Clearwater. He talks ardently about his own music and that of others, and about the power of music to connect people and bind them to a cause. Finally, we meet Toshi, his wife of nearly sixty years, and members of his family, at the house he built on a mountainside in upstate New York.The Protest Singer is as spirited and captivating as its subject--an American icon, celebrating his ninetieth birthday.From the Hardcover edition.

The Happiest Man in the World buoyantly describes seventy-four-year-old David Pearlman, a restless and migratory soul, a mariner, a musician, a member of the Explorers Club and a friend of the San Francisco Beats, a former preacher and sign painter, a polymath, a pauper, and a football strategist for the Red Mesa Redskins of the Navajo Nation. When Pearlman was fifty, he was bitten on the hand by a dog in Mexico and for two years got so sick that he thought he would die. When he recovered, he felt so different that he decided he needed a new name. He began calling himself Poppa Neutrino, after the itinerant particle that is so small it can hardly be detected. To Neutrino, the particle represents the elements of the hidden life that assert themselves discreetly.Inspired by Thor Heyerdahl and Kon-Tiki, Neutrino is the only man ever to build a raft from garbage he found on the streets of New York and sail it across the North Atlantic. The New York Daily News described the accomplishment as "the sail of the century." National Geographic broadcast an account of the trip as part of its series on extreme adventures. And now he is on a quest to cross the Pacific on a raft. If he makes it, he plans to continue around the world. No one has ever sailed around the world on a raft. Meanwhile, he has invented the Neutrino Clock Offense, an unstoppable football play, which a former coach of the New York Jets describes as being as innovative as the forward pass.The philosophical underpinnings of Neutrino's existence are what he calls Triads, a concept worked out after years of reading and reflection. He believes that each person, to be truly happy, must define his or her three deepest desires and pursue them remorselessly. Freedom, Joy, and Art are Neutrino's three.The Happiest Man in the World is a lavish, exotic, funny, and deeply serious book about a man who has led a life of profound engagement and ceaseless adventure.From the Hardcover edition.

"At twenty-four, Alec Wilkinson decided that he wanted to write, so his father asked for the help of his closest friend, William Maxwell, widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's great American writers and an editor of fiction for forty years at The New Yorker. My Mentor is the story of a young man's education at the hands of a master and a heartbreaking meditation on the brave, graceful end of Maxwell's long and happy life - he died at ninety-one, in July 2000. Making use of biography, memoir, and essay, and writing in a lapidary but intimate voice, Wilkinson explores the deeply resonant friendship between the old man and the young one. His experience with Maxwell over the course of twenty-five years he takes as the occasion for a profound and moving reflection on writing, wisdom, fatherhood, love, courage, dignity, and the end that awaits us all."--BOOK JACKET.

Early on the morning of September 22, 1986, Mike Wayne Jackson - age forty, a drifter, in and out of jail for almost twenty years, exhausted, filthy, at the end of his rope - entered the annals of major crime. Stepping out of his house on a quiet residential street in Indianapolis, he shot and killed the man who was approaching: his newly appointed probation officer, a man he barely knew, a much-loved husband and father named Tom Gahl. Before the day was over, Jackson. Would twice again commit murder. By nightfall he would be the most sought-after criminal at large in America. Bringing us close to Jackson, his world, and his victims, Alec Wilkinson carries crime reportage to a new level in a book that combines the pace, range, and intricacy of a novel with scrupulously authentic fact as it tells a riveting story that is profoundly emblematic of American violence, with its great burden of grief. We follow Jackson from the moment of the. First shooting through his frantic rampage in stolen trucks and cars - his victims robbed, killed, kidnapped, or frightened nearly to death - to a small town outside St. Louis. We see him pursued by local police, state troopers, and F.B.I. agents, hiding out in or around the town - no one is ever quite sure where he is - for many long days. We enter the lives of the terrorized local residents and the dogged, tireless, working days and nights of the people, from sheriffs. To Indian-style trackers, whose work is the chase and capture of dangerous criminals. We come to know Jackson through the eyes of his mother and his wife as they struggle to understand the disordered, needy, terrifying, yet sometimes touching man whose fate is entangled with their own. And, most deeply, we come to know Nancy Gahl, the young widow of the murdered probation officer. Wilkinson evokes the very nature and shape of grief as he tells, in quiet and almost. Overwhelming detail, what Nancy experiences from day to day as she and her two sons try to cope with the death of the husband and father they loved so much. Alec Wilkinson has looked deep into the heart of what has become a major American concern: our violence, the agents of that violence, and the consequences of their acts in the lives their rage has altered forever.

Documents the dramatic 1897 flight of a visionary Swedish explorer who attempted to discover the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon, describing the formidable environmental conditions that challenged his efforts.

"Set during Prohibition, and deep in the backwoods of Appalachia, Moonshine #1 tells the story of Lou Pirlo, a city-slick "torpedo" sent from New York City to negotiate a deal with the best moonshiner in West Virginia, one Hiram Holt. Lou figures it for milk run -- how hard could it be to set-up moonshine shipments from a few ass-backward hillbillies? What Lou doesn't figure on is that Holt is just as cunning as ruthless as any NYC crime boss and Lou is in way over his pin-striped head. Because not only will Holt do anything to protect his illicit booze operation, he'll stop at nothing to protect a much darker family secret...a bloody, supernatural secret that must never see the light of day...or better still, the light of the full moon"--Amazon.