2006-03-10 From Hiroshima to Abu Ghraib

From Hiroshima to Abu Ghraib, the rocket fast narrative of Nick Masesso Jr's book "Walking the Midway in Purgatory": A Journal, takes us from the streets of 1950?s Chicago to early modern American commune living populated with underworld & counterculture street heroes. From the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK to Kent State, Masesso lends perspective to these events and their impact on America. In successive chapters we travel to the Narco State that is Columbia, SA and his observations on the fall of Apartheid in racist South Africa from the inside of it's most notorious maximum security prison. We also glimpse the last throes of Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique.

The premise of Masesso's tome is the fact of this similarity. His theorem is that we can unravel today's confusing world affairs and America's participation by looking to the 1960's, the decade that was murdered in its sleep, for our redemption. The sneak attack on Pearl Harbor looks a lot like the sneak attack on the Twin Towers, the horror of 911. The World War that raged for four years afterwards, the bloodiest and most destructive in history, looks a lot like the open-ended War on Terror. The Second World War influenced the work of Norman Mailer, Jack Kerouac, J.D. Salinger and others, profoundly effecting 20th century literature. Masesso thinks that a new generation of thinkers and writers will emerge to take us in a new direction as a result of our new obscene conflict. With his personal, social and political examination of America both then and now he has staked his claim as one of those voices hoping to lead us out of the wilderness.

This author writes in first person singular arias, composed in fits of soul-bearing frenzy with a jazz like extemporaneousness and pop art freshness. This is a journal style story about social events and personal experiences during the sixties. True to the sixties the messages are timeless and apply today. The author's style is direct with enough sensitivity to allow easy ruminating. The author's discriptions gives one the feeling of being there. This book is entertaining and educational. A text book for anyone curious about the sixties and the people that came from everywhere to the Bay Area. Every page contains moral and metaphysical questions presented in a unique way that demand thought, discussion and answer.