Blackout [Hardcover]

Dr. James Goodman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 12, 2003

On July 13, 1977, there was a blackout in New York City. With the dark came excitement, adventure, and fright in subway tunnels, office towers, busy intersections, high-rise stairwells, hotel lobbies, elevators, and hospitals. There was revelry in bars and restaurants, music and dancing in the streets. On block after block, men and women proved themselves heroes by helping neighbors and strangers make it through the night.

Unfortunately, there was also widespread looting, vandalism, and arson. Even before police restored order, people began to ask and argue about why. Why did people do what they did when the lights went out? The argument raged for weeks but it was just like the night: lots of heat, little light--a shouting match between those who held fast to one explanation and those who held fast to another.

James Goodman cuts between accidents, encounters, conversations, exchanges, and arguments to re-create that night and its aftermath in a dizzying accumulation of detail. Rejecting simple dichotomies and one-dimensional explanations for why people act as they do in moments of conflict and crisis, Goodman illuminates attitudes, ideas, and experiences that have been lost in facile generalizations and analyses. Journalistic re-creation at its most exciting, Blackout provides a whirlwind tour of 1970s New York and a challenge to conventional thinking.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fear and looting in New York. That's how many remember the 1977 blackout. While Son of Sam was still at large and unemployment was high, nine million people were suddenly plunged into darkness on a hot July evening. Unlike the comparative calm that characterized the 1965 and 2003 blackouts, in 1977 mobs went on a violent rampage. Adults, teens and children torched buildings, yanked protective metal grills off storefronts and smashed windows to fill their shopping carts with food, appliances, jewelry and clothing. These groups outnumbered police (only 14 officers were on duty in Bushwick, Brooklyn, that evening) and robbed more than 2,000 stores city-wide. By the time power was restored after 25 hours, damages from the devastation had climbed toward $61 million. Rutgers history professor Goodman, a Pulitzer finalist for his first book (Stories of Scottsboro), carries the reader beyond conventional journalism for a multidimensional, kaleidoscopic narrative history, covering the events and aftermath from all angles: "I tell my story in bursts, recreating incidents, deeds, accidents, encounters, conversations, exchanges, and arguments, trying to evoke mood and place and time." He recalls the 1977 blackout through personal accounts, studies, public reports and period articles from magazines (Time, Newsweek) and newspapers (the New York Times, Daily News, New York Post, Village Voice, Amsterdam News). While the more mundane tales of revelry and inconvenience will appear familiar to many readers after blackouts this past year in the U.S., Canada, England and Italy, Goodman reminds us that the excessive looting of 1977 is the looming dark side of power outages in the electrified world.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Rushed out by its publisher after the Northeast's most recent major power outage, the latest from Pulitzer finalist Goodman (Stories of Scottsboro, 1994) captures New York City during the blackout of 1977. It's a portrait of a city hurting from unemployment, spooked by the Son of Sam murders, and dizzy with inflation. Goodman uses a staccato style that is reminiscent of John Dos Passos' socioliterary snapshots, catching citizens in the midst of daily routines, at work and play, barhopping and making love. The narrative's relentless drumbeat becomes somewhat annoying at times, but as the story turns to looting, vandalism, and arson, Goodman's true abilities take over, and the reader is caught up in a nonfiction mystery that cries out for a solution--why do people act as they do under these circumstances? Almost lost is the puerile behavior of the Con Edison executives, who seemed to have spent their time "flak-catching" rather than problem solving. Goodman sheds light on a dark episode in the life of the Big Apple. Allen Weakland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: North Point Press; 1 edition (December 12, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865476586
• ISBN-13: 978-0865476585
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,053,765 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Time machine, April 16, 2004

By A Customer

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This review is from: Blackout (Hardcover)

Anyone who has experienced last summer's blackout and is old enough to remember the previous Big One - 1977 - ought to read "Blackout" just to transport himself back into the era: How different things were!
Those who aren't old enough or weren't there should do the same for educational reasons. We are frequently blinded by today's events and forget how things got the way they are.
James Goodman does a great job reminding us of the many good and bad parts in our fairly recent past - and you don't have to be a New Yorker to appreciate the story he tells.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A compelling look back at the tragic events of July 13, 1977, June 17, 2004

By 

Paul Tognetti "The real world is so much more... (Cranston, RI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blackout (Hardcover)

It has been more than a quarter century since that fateful night. Most folks have long since forgotten all about it. But the New York City blackout of 1977 is an event worth remembering. Who or what was the real cause of the blackout? And what prompted some people in a number of neighborhoods around the city to engage in looting, vandalism and arson that would in the end destroy over 2000 stores citywide?
As author James Goodman points out, these were not the best of times in the City of New York. Crime was out of control, unemployment was high, and confidence in the political leadership of the city was extremely low. And to make matters much worse the city was suffering the effects of debilitating heat wave. The blackout it seems came at just the wrong time.
Using an interesting and at times dizzying writing style, Goodman has a dozen or more storylines going at any one time. He presents the story from all sides. What was the Mayor saying and doing about this crisis? And the suits at Con Edison....how were they responding? What motivated those doing the looting? And how did store owners try to protect their property? How did the police respond and were the measures they took correct and appropriate? And when it was all over what was reaction of community leaders, the media and the politicians? So many questions.
James Goodman has given us a remarkable and thought provoking book. I certainly enjoyed it and if you are a student of history I suspect you will as well.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real crisis real people, May 8, 2007

By 

P. Sekechi - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blackout (Paperback)

His style captures your full attention from the very first page and I became fully involved. The dilemmas in this book are very touching, keeps your mind involved as he shifts between incidents and events taking place concurrently. He has brought them all to life so touchingly. One cannot but once again marvel at the complexity of human nature. Greatly recommended.