Grown-Up Anger

Daniel Wolff is the author of The Fight for Home; How Lincoln Learned to Read; 4th of July/Asbury Park; and You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke, which won the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award. He’s been nominated for a Grammy, published three collections of poetry, and collaborated with, among others, songwriters, documentary filmmakers, photographers, and choreographer Marta Renzi, his wife.

“In this book—so soberly inflamed that the pages seem to turn of their own accord—the history of the American twentieth century is made of lodestars that don’t figure in conventional accounts… It is at precisely this moment that its story will be most fully heard.” — Greil Marcus“No matter how much you think you know about Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, you’re wrong… This is the best sense anyone has ever made about the connection between them, and the best reappraisal either has had in a couple of decades.” — Dave Marsh“…Wolff provides a primer on the complicated history of anger, political and personal, in American music, one that’s never been more needed than it is today. There aren’t many cultural histories that read like they’ve been written for activists and fans. Grown-Up Anger moves to the head of that list.” — Craig Werner, Evjue-Bascom Professor of Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of A Change Is Gonna Come“…an exciting romp across labor union history through the lens of American music. Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie’s protest and solidarity songs represent the disaffection of those marginalized by industrialization, war, and later globalization. If you’re not sure why we need unions… consider Daniel Wolff’s Grown-Up Anger a must read.” — Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, local 1 of the American Federation of Teachers“The path leading from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan has been well traveled, but Daniel Wolff has gone off-road and forged bold new connections between the two cultural titans… The result is an imaginative tour de force that sheds new light on…the heartbreaking history that created them both.” — Anthony DeCurtis, contributing editor, Rolling Stone“A masterful tale of music, social, and economic history…. Wolff’s elegantly intertwined historical drama is consistently revelatory. A dazzling, richly researched story impeccably told.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“In Grown-Up Anger, Daniel Wolff assembles an American triad to raise the ghosts of greed and misery. Through memory, music, and a clear insight into the emotional process of protest, Wolff reminds us of how it did, and how it does, ultimately feel.” — Patti Smith“…Wolff provides a primer on the complicated history of anger, political and personal, in American music, one that’s never been more needed than it is today. There aren’t many cultural histories that read like they’ve been written for activists and fans. Grown-Up Anger moves to the head of that list.” — Timothy B. Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till“(An) elegantly written and insightful cultural history. Much Dylan love starts with such raw emotions, then matures into an appreciation of more sophisticated aspects of the work. In eloquent, heartfelt prose, Wolff’s revelatory book argues that those early pleasures are not only vitally important but that they never entirely go away.” — Jason Zinoman, New York Times