David Talbot reads from Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love

Summary: David Talbot stopped by City Lights Bookstore on Thursday, May 10, 2012, to read and discuss his new book Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love (Simon & Schuster). In a kaleidoscopic narrative, the New York Times bestselling author of Brothers recounts the gripping story of the civil strife and tragedies that beset San Francisco between 1967 and 1982—and led to the city’s ultimate rebirth and triumph. San Francisco was the cradle of the 1960s, but also its coffin, giving rise to the Zebra and Zodiac killers, Altamont, Jonestown, the assassination of Harvey Milk, and the AIDS epidemic. And yet San Francisco not only rose from the wreckage of the 1970s, but developed a live-and-let-live tolerance that influenced the entire country. David Talbot, founder of the San Francisco based web magazine Salon, is uniquely poised to tell his iconic city’s story in all its terrible glory. Season of the Witch comes to life with jaw-dropping scenes and a cast of characters that includes the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, Charles Manson, Patty Hearst, the Cockettes, the Hells Angels, Harvey Milk, and the mercurial 49ers coach Bill Walsh. As Talbot writes, “San Francisco values did not come into the world with flowers in their hair—they were born howling, in blood and strife.” This is the wild story of the people and events that shaped the city that continues to shape the nation. What has been said about Season of the Witch: “A fresh, fun, vigorous look at a strange American city David Talbot knows well and loves with irony.” – Oliver Stone “As a phenomenally intuitive journalist, editor, and culture critic, David Talbot has not only channeled the Zeitgeist but helped make it.” – Camille Paglia, best-selling author, and culture critic “David Talbot is a great story-teller. He writes like an angel and has a reporter’s passion for the truth. Describing people I knew, I can say that Talbot has perfect pitch, but he has also introduced me to others, as thrilling as sin. He got it all just right and gets closer to describing the lusty, languorous, glamorous, and sometimes lethal Saint named Francisco than anyone I know. The book overflows with gifts. I’m in awe of it.” – Peter Coyote, author of Sleeping Where I Fall David Talbot, author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, has been hailed as a “pioneer of online journalism” by The New York Times, is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Salon. He has worked as a senior editor for Mother Jones magazine and as a features editor for the San Francisco Examiner. Talbot has written for The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Time and other publications. He lives with his family in San Francisco.