Tripping Across 1969

About the Book

Daniel Cottone had a magnificent and tumultuous year in 1969. There was the contentious, ongoing struggle for civil rights for minorities erupting across America and the continuation of an excruciating, unpopular war in Vietnam. The forces obstructing the civil rights effort and supporting the devastating conflict were stubbornly steadfast. Cottone looks back at the era’s events, as well as the painful memories of his first love—a love that he lost—in this epic novel. Amid that backdrop is the pressure of the military draft, the Woodstock music festival, and the narrator’s increasing doubt about the war and American values. His experiences mirror the road that many of his peers traveled, but inexplicably, by the end of 1969, that intangible something that defined the era had already begun to fade. The title of the book contains and embodies the word Tripping. With respect to the story, it has three primary definitions: tripping as in traveling; tripping as in searching and stumbling; and, finally, tripping as in tripping (on drugs). Join Cottone as he travels across America in search of new places and new people—becoming an active participant of history in Tripping Across 1969.

About the Author

Josef Ferri attended the fortieth-year gathering at the site of the Woodstock Festival in 2009, which was his first time back to Bethel, New York, since attending the original festival. While he touched on the era’s events in his autobiographical novel, Trying to Catch the Wind: Memoir of a Love That Was More Than Love, he explores them more fully in this autobiographical-based novel. Ferri currently lives in Buffalo, New York.