Published by Counterpoint
Out of the Sixties
counterculture explosion came a radical street group called the Diggers who became the
heart and soul of the Haight-Ashbury experience. Among its founders was Peter Coyote who
has taken his memoirs of this anarchic and psychedelic era and woven them into a
collection of stories from his life in San Francisco to communes and gypsy years on the
road becoming part of the Free Family. It was during this time that Coyote developed his
political consciousness continuing to define and refine it through the years.
Named after a group of 17th century
free-thinkers in England, the Diggers dedicated themselves to building a new morality in
place of the money-hungry capitalistic society, cutting through the cultural propaganda
via the medium of both street theater and "free" programs. They began to
distribute free food, provide free medical care and sponsor free rock concerts in Golden
Gate Park featuring musicians like the Grateful Dead. They burned money, left its ashes
and set out to create the condition they described.
"We imagined a world in which we could live authentically, without the
pressures of economics dictating all personal choices. We made it real by acting it
out." - Peter Coyote
Sleeping Where I Fall
describes the stories behind that pursuit of absolute freedom, stories which are not only
entertaining but a testament to the human spirit and the dreams of that generation and the
groundwork it laid for the future. As a storyteller of countless tales with a cast of
characters that often seem more fictional than true, Coyote also recounts his friendship
with fellow edge dweller Emmett Grogan, who in 1972 wrote his own memoirs in Ringolevio.
Coyote has already received
recognition for his writing having won the prestigious Pushcart Prize for Carla's Story, which was published in the '93-'94
Pushcart Anthology, a collection of short stories, essays and poetry often referred
to as the "best of the small presses." Though no longer a separate chapter,
the story of Coyote's relationship with Carla can still be found in his book.
Reviews & Interviews:
Ralph Magazine, Mid-Fall
1998, review
Salon Magazine, 4/17/98, review
San
Francisco Examiner, 4/19/98, interview
NPR:Fresh Air, 4/28/98, interview
via transcript
San Jose Mercury News, 5/24/98, review
Los Angeles Times , 6/4/98, interview
Omnibus, review
New Age Journal, July/August issue, interview
Houston Chronicle, 7/5/98, review
Townonline.com, 7/21/98, interview
Shambhala Sun, November issue, interview
Page One newsletter, 2/99, interview
La Pagina, 3/14/99, review
Library Journal:
Coyote not only survived the excesses of the Sixties and Seventies
but emerged from years of journeying through the counterculture to
achieve success as an actor. Considering the numerous casualties
among radicals, who, like Coyote, were heroin junkies living on the
edge of society, this is a rare feat. In this frank yet sensitive
memoir of those years, Coyote contradicts romantic notions of
communes by recalling the discord and petty disagreements typical in
his own communal living experiences at Olema ranch and Red House. He
describes the chaos created by the Diggers, an antiestablishment
group of which he is usually considered a founding member and
leader, famous for their stores where everything was given away
free, and he remembers his stoned life in Haight-Ashbury.
Eventually, he surfaced to work with the San Francisco Mime Troupe,
for which he received a special Obie Award. Coyote's thoughtful,
articulate writing displays a compassionate wisdom that puts this
chronicle in a class above the typical actor's autobiography. Highly
recommended for relevent subject collections in academic as well as
public libraries.
Booklist:
Film actor Peter Coyote recounts his exploits in the
1960s and '70s in this literate insider's account of the San
Francisco/Northern California hippie scene. As a member of the San
Francisco Mime Troupe and, later, the Diggers, Coyote (the name is
totemic) was at the center of the action and a witness to many of
the era's countercultural events. He colors the historical
perspective of those events with highly personal memories of his
life on the road and in various urban and rural communes. He also
resurrects long-dead ghosts: Emmett Grogan, Janis Joplin, John
Lennon, poet Lew Welch, not to mention the idealism that propelled
the whole movement. While avoiding the pitfalls of nostalgia, Coyote
reflects on the serendipity of his own life, from upper-middle-class
upbringing to heavy drug-user to Wall Street broker to chairman of
the California Arts Council to respected and sought-after film
actor. He is at once contented and optimistic, and occasionally
apologetic; the zeitgeist that informed Coyote 30 years ago has not
abandoned him.
Publishers Weekly:
Actor Coyote's articulate, thoroughly absorbing chronicle
of his life in the 1960s and '70s portrays a pioneering communard
who is highly aware of the interdependence of all life. Describing
his pilgrim's progress from the San Francisco Mime Troupe to
founding the utopian group, the Diggers and its offshoot, the Free
Family, Coyote emerges as a man inextricably connected to others.
Beginning in 1964, when he arrived in San Francisco fresh from
Grinnell College, Coyote (ne Cohon) traveled from riches as the son
of a difficult, talented Wall Street stock trader to deliberate rags
as a committed member of the countercultural movement that
challenged reigning materialistic values and assumptions. Two years
after Coyote joined the San Francisco Mime Troupe, a radical street
theater company, the visionary raconteur Emmett Grogan breezed into
audition and changed Coyote's life. With Grogan and several other
Mime Troupe members, Coyote formed the Diggers, a group committed to
"liberating the imagination from economic assumptions of profit and
private property..."
The author (who renamed himself "Coyote" in honor of a coyote vision
he had while high on peyote, and who has gone on to appear in films
ranging from E.T. to Bitter Moon) experienced all the indulgence and
the idealism that came with living free. Offering glimpses of the
Grateful Dead, the Hell's Angels, Gary Snyder and other color
characters, his honest tale portrays a grand social experiment with
rare clarity and heart, persuading readers that its spirit lives on
in many whose lives it touched.
Paul Hawken, Whole Earth
Catalog:
Peter has recreated a tableau of some of the most Felliniesque
characters ever to grace the pages of a nonfiction work. What works
here is the utter lack of varnish, for this is neither a defense nor
an apologia for the 1960s. It is a description of Peter's odyssey
through some of the important players and communities that flared
briefly and then burnt out. By pulling back the curtain on the
stage, wings, and dressing room of the sixties, with the sex, drugs,
and rock-and-roll intact, he reveals a world without a trace of
glamour. This is the world that Tom Wolf and Joan Didion only
glimpsed and interviewed, the one George Leonard skirted. Were
flowers placed in gun barrels at the Pentagon? For sure. But guns
were also placed next to people's temples and fired. It is as if an
entire urban village became a nonstop Commedia Del Arte for several
years, until the sheer intensity destroyed or scattered all but the
hardiest. Not until the laughter died off were the bodies counted.
This is not the hero's journey. Having read it, no one will pine to
have been in his shoes, on his chopper, or in his body. This is the
survivor's tale. Peter's opportunism is not hidden. His hustling
gift of the gab got him into the worst and "best" of the sixties. He
uses the same gift to take the reader back.
Review by Coymoon:
Peter Coyote has already made a name for himself as a film actor,
political activist and narrator, whose voice can be easily
recognized in an infinite amount of commercials, documentaries and
audiobooks. Now comes his best and most challenging narrative of all
- "Sleeping Where I Fall" - his own story based on the years when he
was part of the Sixties counterculture explosion as one of the
founders of a radical street group called the Diggers. Peter has
taken his memoirs of this anarchic and psychedelic era and woven
them into a collection of stories from his life in San Francisco to
communes and gypsy years on the road as part of the Free Family.
Says Coyote, "We imagined a world in which we could live
authentically, without the pressures of economics dictating all
personal choices. We made it real by acting it out."
What few people know is that
Peter has always thought of himself as a writer first and foremost
since his college days pursuing a master's degree in creative
writing. Now with the release of this book, he further fulfills a
dream by entering the literary world as a gifted writer, evidenced
by the reviews of Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Omnibus, San
Francisco Chronicle and many more.
His story is told with great humor, candor and self-critical
analysis. Peter is not afraid to reveal himself giving accounts of
both his generosity of spirit and his character flaws. Ironically,
the very first chapter starts out with "While still an undergraduate
at Grinnell College, I had fallen in love with Jessie Benton, a
captivating woman I met one summer on Martha's Vineyard." This
passage alone is a premonition to his perpetual attraction to women,
a beguiling enchantment which could culminate in euphoric days and
nights but, also, in broken relationships often bringing hurtful and
destructive consequences. There's poetry in his descriptions of
nature as witnessed in some of his music - "all the splendors of
creation set the marrow trembling! in my bones." (from "Rainbow
Woman") His prose has lyrical clarity dotted with clever metaphors
and similes that bring his images to life and convey a myriad of
experiences and feelings from peyote and heroin highs and
camaraderie in communal living to his bitter conflicts with both the
mother of his daughter and his overbearing father.
"Sleeping Where I Fall" is an extremely personal account of his
search for truth, understanding and wisdom. Though he rode with the
Hell's Angels and lived a life of dangerous drugs, you will come
away still sensing an innocence about Coyote, a man who wanted to
dream the future because, as with all youthful idealism, he believed
there was something more to be gained in this world other than
materialism.
His accounts of this pursuit of absolute freedom are often
seductive, always fascinating. He writes objectively, careful not to
romanticize or glorify the times. He's very frank, darn-right earthy
as in his example of pearls of wisdom. He shares tales of living
with drug-crazed friends whose demons sometimes propelled them to an
early death. One comes away with the feeling of having spent time at
Red House, Black Bear Ranch or Olema, becoming intimately acquainted
with a whole host of colorful characters, such as Moose, Natural
Suzanne, Ron Thelin, Sweet William, Nichole, Carla, Rolling Thunder,
Chocolate George, as well as their inventive modes of transportation
like Dr. Knucklefunky.
There is as much sadness as there is laughter, but it's a book
you'll find hard to put down. It's not only entertaining, but a
testament to the human spirit and the dreams of that generation, and
a tribute to the groundwork it laid for the future. As a masterful
storyteller, Peter succeeds in bringing more honest illumination to
the Sixties, an historic period in our country that has not always
been defined or treated fairly. If any fil! m critic hasn't yet
understood the charisma, the complex persona and intelligence that
Coyote brings to his screen roles, they should definitely read this
book.
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