"Season of the Witch," by David Talbot

I was absolutely blown away by "Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love" (Free Press, 2012), by David Talbot. The story of the city of San Francisco from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, the book is riveting: well-researched, well-written, well-shaped, propulsive, full of vivid details, and shot through with the thesis that what happened in San Francisco was, on the one hand, unique, and on the other hand, a sort of representation of trends that would reverberate throughout the United States. Among the many events and themes covered are the rise and fall of the Haight Ashbury district, the pioneering music scene, the freedom that the city provided to many who fled the Midwest and other parts of the country, the home that S.F. provided for gays and lesbians, the best and the worst of city politics, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the Jim Jones/Guyana tragedy, the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the scourge of AIDS and the ways in which S.F. pioneered compassionate treatment and care and support of sufferers of the disease. My connection to the time period and events of the book, as a resident of San Francisco for a good part of the period covered, was obviously one reason for my appreciation of and enthusiasm about the book. Reading this book brought back many memories, and at the same time provided new information and details that I hadn't known at the time. Although the book was published in 2012, and the events covered are only up to the mid-1980s, and although San Francisco has changed in many ways since that time period, the city and its residents are still, whether we/they realize it or not, influenced by the powerful events and trends of that time period. I thank my brother P., who was also a resident of San Francisco during a large part of this time period, for recommending this book to me. I think anyone who lives in, or has lived in, S.F./the Bay Area, would be caught up in this book, as would other readers in or from other places who will recognize the profound and widespread consequences of what Talbot describes in "The Season of the Witch."