Overview

A day-to-day narrative of one chaotic week at Notre Dame when college students, talented authors, and presidential candidates grappled with major events, creating one of the most historic literary festivals of the twentieth century

"Masterfully researched and beautifully written, One Week in America is . . . an important piece of history full of larger-than-life characters and unlikely heroes." —Jonathan Eig, author of Ali: A Life The major players in this story are names that just about every American has heard of: Ralph Ellison, Martin Luther King Jr., Norman Mailer, Lyndon B. Johnson, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, William F. Buckley Jr. For one chaotic week in 1968, college students, talented authors, and presidential candidates grappled with major events. The result was one of the most historic literary festivals of the twentieth centuryOne Week in America is a day-by-day narrative of the 1968 Notre Dame Sophomore Literary Festival and the national events that grabbed the spotlight that April week.On one particular week, sixties politics and literature came together on campus.

Reviews

"Masterfully researched and beautifully written, One Week in America is . . . an important piece of history full of larger-than-life characters and unlikely heroes." —Jonathan Eig, author of Ali: A Life 

"Patrick Parr perfectly captures a unique moment in American history, when a motley group of college kids convinced America's leading literary lights to come together for one memorable week in 1968. You'll wonder if it really happened, but it did, and One Week in America rescues this incredible story from obscurity." —Matthew Algeo, author of All This Marvelous Potential: Robert Kennedy's 1968 Tour of Appalachia

"Completely absorbing, One Week in America deftly illuminates one of the most consequential weeks in our history through cinematic storytelling that feels as much viewed as read. This is the way the best stories resonate, they leave us trembling as if we were actual witnesses to the original events and had merely forgotten we were present." —W. Jason Miller, author of Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric    

"In One Week in America, Patrick Parr has written an a wonderfully nuanced and essential cultural history. By closely examining the Symposium of Great American Writers at Notre Dame, which took place amid one of the most eventful, tragic weeks in our history, Parr illuminates that time in unexpected and fascinating ways. I tore through this book of conflicting personalities and ideas, and can't recommend it more highly." —Peter Orner, author of Maggie Brown & Others 

"One Week in America is an engaging, multidimensional snapshot of US society in 1968. It's certainly a resource you wish to research the civil rights movement, antiwar activism, and the literary scene in America in the '60's. It's also fascinating to the general reader interested in modern history, presented from many angles." —PopMatters

"An inherently fascinating bit of American cultural history." —Midwest Book Review

Author Biography

Patrick Parr is the author of The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age, and a history columnist for Japan Today. Other work has appeared in The Atlantic, Politico, American History Magazine, and the Boston Globe. In 2014 he was awarded an Artist Trust Fellowship for his literary career.