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A 1960s rock and roll magnum opus about three friends on the cusp of musical stardom.

A 1960s rock and roll magnum opus about three friends on the cusp of musical stardom.

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´Generous but unflinching, sweeping but intimate, fictional but true´ KAREN JOY FOWLER.

´A brilliant requiem for our generation and all our dreams´ GEORGE R.R. MARTIN.

What happened to the idealism of the 1960s? This question has haunted a generation.

Outside the Gates of Eden follows two men from their first meeting in high school to their final destination in the 21st century. Alex is torn between his father´s business empire and his own artistic yearnings. Cole, constantly uprooted in his childhood, finds his calling at a Bob Dylan concert in 1965.

From the Summer of Love in San Francisco to the Woodstock festival in upstate New York, from campus protests to the Soho art scene, from a communal farm in Virginia to the mariachis of Guanajuato, Mexico, the novel charts the rise and fall of the counterculture - and what came after.

Using the music business as a window into the history of half a century, Outside the Gates of Eden is both epic and intimate, starkly realistic and ultimately hopeful, a War and Peace for the Woodstock generation.

´Shiner displays the panoramic historical consciousness of a Pynchon or DeLillo, and yet every page is suffused with a humble and scrupulous humanity ... You simply live with his people and know them and love them´ JONATHAN LETHEM.

´A page-turning tour de force. Anyone with a passion for rock and roll storytelling at its very best must not deny themselves the opportunity to read this tale. A masterpiece´ IAIN MATTHEWS.

´A history of a generation seen through the lens of music´ JOHN KESSEL.

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´A story of the sixties that is generous but unflinching, sweeping but intimate, fictional but true. For everyone who´s wondered how we got from there to here and also where we might go next. Hugely ambitious, simply beautiful´ Karen Joy Fowler.

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Shiner, Lewis
Lewis Shiner was born in 1950 and played in rock bands from high school on. Previous novels include Black & White , the award-winning Glimpses , and the cyberpunk classic Frontera . He´s written about music for the Village Voice , Pulse , Crawdaddy , and others. His short fiction has been reprinted in a number of best-of-the-year anthologies, and his latest collection is Heroes and Villains: Three Short Novels and a Fable . He lives in North Carolina.

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