A turbulent coming-of-age novel about a young man who loses his innocence and finds his soul in the ferment of New York City in 1970
On the brink of a new decade, as the crazy 1960s morph into the even crazier 1970s, seventeen-year-old Sam Stein is about to grow up in a hurry. Raised in a cushy Long Island suburb where his clueless parents consign him to the care of a beloved live-in black maid Tutu Carter, Sam stumbles into a New Year's party that changes everything forever. In short order, he falls in love with firebrand Kim Goodman, flees with her to the drug-soaked East Village of Manhattan, and gets swept up in the spiraling violence of the Weather Underground and the Black Panther Party.
An aspiring writer, Sam bears witness to the seismic upheavals of the day while remaining utterly blind to a high-stakes plot that Kim and her revolutionary comrades are executing right under his nose. As seemingly unrelated events click into place, what Sammy knew and what Sammy didn't know become matters of life and death - not only for himself and Kim, but for Tutu and her grandson Leon in Harlem, and for the radical protest movement teetering between disillusion and revolution. Compulsively readable, peopled by unforgettable characters, crackling with wit and suspense, What Sammy Knew brilliantly evokes a chaotic, dangerously polarized moment in America that resonates with the struggles of today.
