Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love Paperback – March 5, 2013

Talbot’s well written and insightful book provides an entertaining and enlightening look at the recent history of the city of San Francisco. From the 1950s and 1960s, when the city began to shape its identity as a haven for iconoclasts and “alternative” types through the turbulence of the 1970s to the both admirable and regrettable developments of the end of the twentieth century, Talbot’s critical eye reports on the good, the bad, and the very ugly.

Although the author eschews the temptation to romanticize San Francisco’s multidimensional history, he acknowledges all the best that the city has to offer as he portrays the struggles and hardships that many readers might not be aware of—for example, the racial divide that vexed the city for much of the 1970s and the uneasy political partnerships that existed between venerable liberal figures like Mayor George Moscone, Harvey Milk, and the Peoples Temple, Jim Jones’ suicide cult, which once held an eerie degree of political power in the city.

Talbot devotes large sections of the book to the SLA and its abduction of Patty Hearst, San Francisco’s evolution as the gay capital of the US (if not the world), the strange ordeal of the Peoples Temple, Dan White’s assassination of Moscone and Milk, Dianne Feinstein’s political ascension, and other bits of history both profound (the Zebra murders) and uplifting (the 49ers’ triumph as NFL champions).

Overall, a compelling examination of the city of San Francisco, and a must-read for anyone who lives there or who has ever been curious about the city’s unique appeal.

My daughter moved to San Francisco 18 months ago, and while visiting her there I picked this book up in the City Lights book store. Browsing the cover, it seemed like it might offer some insight into my kid's new home base. Boy, did it deliver! Mr. Talbot clearly loves San Francisco. His extremely well-researched book made me love it too, and also feel better about my East Coast baby's move to the West. Also, his writing style is what I'd describe as extremely readable. His use of words and the flow of the words are a joy for the reader. As a baby boomer I particularly enjoyed reading details I didn't know about the so-called Summer of Love, the Patty Hearst case, and the horrific story of Jim Jones and the PeoplesTemple, all enriched by the author's insights. Highly recommend,

For many baby boomers growing up in the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco’s Summer of Love represented forbidden pleasures just out of reach. A few of us ventured south to partake, most stayed put, stymied by our tender years (I was 14 in the summer of 1967, living in a small northwest farming community) or anchored by summer jobs, American Legion baseball and other provincial obligations. A year earlier, a trip to Candlestick Park to catch a Giants game would have topped my San Francisco to do list; now, there was the prospect of encountering bra-less hippie chicks in tight-fitting peasant blouses which could lead to – well, I hadn’t quite figured out that part just yet. Later, during our college years, we would encounter assorted burnouts who claimed to have Been There and Done It.

David Talbot has crafted a wonderfully written and meticulously researched book about a 15-year period of San Francisco’s political and cultural history, Season of the Witch. It covers much more than the Summer of Love. Readers will be re-introduced, or be discovering for the first time, the likes of Vincent Hallinan, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, Moby Grape, Harvey Milk, Patty Hearst, Herb Caen and Cleve Jones.

Season of the Witch is filled with overflowing exuberance on one page and grief and rage on the next. Stories about free outdoor concerts given by The Grateful Dead and other local bands yield to stories about drug dealing street punks and self-styled revolutionaries.

As the region became a destination for free spirits, adventure seekers and sexual minorities, conflicts between newcomers and established residents were inevitable. Talbot’s portrayal of San Francisco’s law enforcement community was too generalized and harsh in the opinion of some reviewers who lived in the region at the time, but he does not exaggerate the power and influence of Catholic Church doctrine as it reinforced attitudes about God, Family, Country and Civic Order in the hearts and minds of police officers and elected officials.

One officer, firmly grounded in Catholic values, was Dan White. While preparing to run for a position on the Board of Supervisors in 1977, “White lashed out at the ‘social malignancies’ and ‘cesspool of perversion’ that were contaminating his hometown. ‘I am not going to be forced out of San Francisco by splinter groups of radicals, social deviants and incorrigibles,’ vowed White.”

And, finally, Season of the Witch forces us to remember the monster that was Jim Jones. The story of the People’s Temple, the forced pilgrimage of hundreds of disciples to the humid hellhole of Guyana and the horrific ending is treated objectively by Talbot.

One oversight: The widespread, defiant denial with respect to AIDS within the gay community, which alienated many straights and probably delayed the legalization of civil unions and same-sex marriage by at least a decade, was never addressed by the author.

Other west coast cities would come to emulate the libertarianism of San Francisco – Seattle, Eugene, Portland, Vancouver, B.C. - and there are many cautionary tales for leaders of those communities to heed within the pages of Season of the Witch.

Talbot’s opus is a profoundly valuable addition to our historical understanding of societal pendulum swings. If I could give it six stars, I would

One of the most interesting accounts of San Francisco history during
the tumultuous period from 1967 to 1982. I came of age in 1966 in the
SF Bay Area, and I was there through much of that period. I can remember the
horror of Jonestown and the assassinations at city hall that followed a few days
later.
Talbot's book cleared up a lot of unanswered questions still on my mind about certain events
during that time, especially in his harrowing narrative about the disasterous Rolling
Stones concert in Altamont.
I should caution readers that parts of the book are not exactly pleasant to
read about and it exposes nuch of the dark side that era.