Grown-Up Anger: The Connected Mysteries of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Calumet Massacre of 1913

Daniel Wolff

jun 2017 · HarperCollins

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A brilliantly intertwined account of two revolutionary musicians, a miners’ strike, and a deadly tragedy: “Reads like a historical detective story.” —The New York Times Book Review

At thirteen, when he first heard Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” Daniel Wolff recognized the sound of anger. When he later discovered “Song for Woody,” Dylan’s tribute to folk musician Woody Guthrie, Wolff fixed on it as a clue to a distinctive mix of rage and compassion. That clue led back to Guthrie’s “1913 Massacre”—a memorial song about the horrific conclusion to a union Christmas party in Calumet, Michigan.

Following the trail from Dylan to Guthrie to a tragedy that claimed seventy-four lives, Wolff found himself tracing a century-long line of anger. From America’s early industrialized days up to the present, the battle over economic justice keeps resurfacing: on a freight car in California, on a joyride through New Orleans, in a snowy field in Michigan. At the stunning conclusion—as the mysteries of Dylan, Guthrie, and the 1913 tragedy connect—the reader discovers a larger story, purposely distorted and buried in time.

A tour de force of storytelling years in the making that chronicles the struggles between the haves and have-nots, Grown-Up Anger is both a dual biography of two legendary songwriters and a murder mystery. It also serves as a history of labor relations and socialism, big business and greed in twentieth-century America—all woven together in one epic saga.

“A fascinating and relevant whirlwind examination of music, economic injustice, and two American icons.” —Booklist (starred review)

“A masterful tale of music, social, and economic history . . . A dazzling, richly researched story impeccably told.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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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.