Run Run Run: The Lives of Abbie Hoffman

by Jack Hoffman, Dan Simon, Paul Krassner (Foreword by)

Overview

Intertwining the details of Abbie Hoffman's intense personal life with the movement politics of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, Dan Simon writes Abbie's story from the point of view of his younger brother Jack, creating a full and poignant portrait of one of the geniuses of the 1960s counterculture. From the creation of the Yippies! in 1967 and the tumult of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, to the humor and agony of the Chicago conspiracy trial, the scandal of Abbie's 1973 cocaine bust, and his six and a half years as a fugitive, to his reemergence as environmentalist "Barrie Freed' and his final struggle with manic-depressive illness, this biography offers a compelling examination of the contradictions that make Abbie Hoffman such a compelling figure. With the information and affection only a brother could bring to the complexities of Abbie's life, Hoffman and Simon portray Abbie's public persona alongside his private aspirations and fears, romances, and enduring family relationships.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609809478
Publisher:	Seven Stories Press
Publication date:	01/14/2020
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Jack Hoffman, Abbie's only brother, was also his longtime manager, researcher, and confidant. A retired businessman, he lives in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Editor and author Dan Simon founded Seven Stories Press in 1995, and the predecessor company Four Walls Eight Windows in 1984. While at Four Walls Eight Windows, Simon answered a classified ad that Abbie Hoffman had placed in the Nation and worked with Hoffman to produce his last book, The Best of Abbie Hoffman, an omnibus collection that included Abbie's three major works, Steal This Book, Woodstock Nation, and Revolution for the Hell of It, with a foreword by Norman Mailer. After Abbie's untimely death in the spring of 1989, Abbie's younger brother Jack approached Simon and asked him if he would write Abbie's biography from Jack's point of view, a brother's story, and Simon agreed. The first edition of Run Run Run: The Lives of Abbie Hoffman was published by Putnam under their Jeremy Tarcher imprint.

Editorial Reviews

A sobering portrait of the long-term consequences of activism.

Jewish Book World

The obsessive inner forces that drove Abbie Hoffman (1936-89), antiwar protester, media manipulator and grassroots organizer, are illuminated in this engaging biography by his younger brother. Jack Hoffman's intimate first-person narrative is coauthored with Simon, cofounder of Four Wall Eight Windows publishing. The book offers close views of Abbie's troubled relationship with his conservative father, his contentious first marriage and his role in the 1969 Chicago Conspiracy trial. Also revealed are his constant drug use, including his 1973 cocaine bust and his fugitive years with ex-model Johanna Lawrenson, during which, as ``Barry Freed,'' he organized an environmentalist campaign to save the St. Lawrence Seaway. We learn that Abbie took lithium for manic-depressive disorder; Jack Hoffman retracts his statement alleging foul play, made shortly after Abbie died of barbituate poisoning, and describes his brother's self-medicating at the time of his death. Photos. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

During the silver anniversaries of Woodstock and the Chicago conspiracy trial, Abbie Hoffman's name was mentioned on more than a few occasions. Now, the iconoclast's brother Jack--keeper of the family business while Abbie was off saving the world--shares his recollections of his sib in a personal, informative biography that effectively evokes the vitality, charisma, and commitment of the late radical prankster. Abbie has gotten his share of vilification and lionization over the years, but Jack, with the competent assistance of Daniel Simon, lovingly depicts him as full of contradictions--antic performer and hermit, street tough and intellectual, political scientist and flower child, middle-class kid and revolutionary--but with a heart dedicated to good works. Abbie was a textbook manic-depressive: when he was up, he was flying; when he was down, he was suicidal (indeed, he took his own life in 1989). Jack pulls few punches in presenting Abbie's irresponsibility and psychological fragility (while a fugitive, Abbie's worst fear was that the FBI didn't really want to catch him) but counters it with demonstrations of selflessness and generosity (Abbie gave much of his income away and, contrary to FBI misinformation, always eschewed limousines). Jack does a fine job covering all the major events--the Yippies, the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, the conspiracy trial, the many arrests, the cocaine bust, the fugitive years, the resurfacing, and the later years when Abbie floundered and lost his grip. Ultimately, Jack Hoffman does justice to his brother's spirit.

Benjamin Segedin

"I thought I knew Abbie Hoffman, but this book constantly fascinated me with its revelations. ...Behind Abbie's wild antics was a powerful seriousness of purpose — a combination of qualities that made him a unique actor in the drama of our time. Run Run Run beautifully captures both the human being and that larger drama."
— Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States

"He stood up against arbitrary power, capricious power, arrogant and callous power. In other words, he stood up to the bullies. He had the courage for the rest of us."
— Sydney Schanberg, author of The Killing Fields

"Jack's approach to his late brother is protective, but it rings with the truth of familial interaction... Run Run Run doesn't ignore Abbie's political, social, or personal mistakes... in giving us a fuller picture of the man, we can better put them in context."
—San Francisco Chronicle

From the Publisher