“Gentle Ann in the clutches of a stone-freak revolutionary mad mob.”
A lot of the books we consider radical or counter cultural pulp fiction where written by people who, in reality, had nothing to with the actual scene but just wanted to cash in on it.
Today’s Pulp Friday book, Trashing, was written by someone intimately involved in the sixties counter culture. Released by Belmont Tower Books in 1972, the author, Ann Fettamen, was a pseudonym for Anita Hoffman, wife of Abbie Hoffman. In true Yippie style, Hoffman puffed the book (“Ann Fettamen is the Nancy Drew of the revolution… Trashing makes Harold Robbins read like Homer”). So did fellow Yippie Jerry Rubin.
The book is a semi-autobilographical tale of a young woman who gets involved in the counter culture after meeting a charismatic revolutionary, and engages in all manner of Yippie activities.
The back cover blurb is as follows:
“The perils of Ann.
Orgies, drugs, stealing and revolutionary mad-making are part of the underground’s daily life. When Ann, a nice girl from a good home, falls in love with a subterranean guru she meets the hippies head-on. After an LSD wedding in Central Park, Ann settles for the humdrum existence of pot-smoking, group sex and biker rumbles, credit card stealing and takeover of the New York Stock Exchange. An all-too-true saga of the youth movement today.”
I first saw Trashing reviewed in Iain McIntyre’s wonderful book Sticking It to the Man! This book is almost impossible to get hold of. Thanks to Iain for the loan of it here.
