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Wasted Year: The Last Hippies of Ole Miss
Meet Daniel Medway, rumored to be the most dangerous student on the Ole Miss campus because of his reputation for creating hippie mayhem in every corner of Oxford, Mississippi. But appearances can be deceiving. Over the course of this big-hearted comedy of bad manners, Daniel discovers that he actually has the soul of a gentleman and the moral compass of a saint, to offset his God-given knack for stumbling into trouble.
It’s August 1971, and Daniel is about to embark on the most riotous year of his life, in the company of his friends Garrett, Clamor, Dr. Goodleigh and a cast of unforgettable characters that includes a mad Chinese cook, a sometimes invisible dog, an ex-KGB agent, and a kindly stranger who might just be Elvis in disguise.
About the author
Daniel Medway (the real author of this chronicle) is the worthless scion of a proud old Mississippi family that sorely wishes he’d stop mentioning the relationship.
Declared “a waste of a placenta” by his daddy on the day of his birth — a prediction that proved eerily accurate as the years unfolded — Daniel will probably best be remembered for writing some poems that James Dickey (briefly) liked one night on a drunken tear, the Great Harpoon Incident, and the miles of microfilmed evidence the FBI once gathered on him.
Having squandered some early promise in the pursuit of Jim Beam, pretty women, and the perfect stereo system for his complete collection of the Fugs, Daniel recently unearthed a dog-eared copy of his daily chronicle from August 1971 to August 1972 — what he’s since come to regard, affectionately, as his most wasted year.
He hopes this release of these chronicles will serve as an expression of remorse for all the damage he’s managed to do in this world. Former acquaintances might prefer a more personal expression of regret, but if he started making individual apologies at this point, there would be no end to it.
He also hopes you’ll enjoy Wasted Year: The Last Hippies of Ole Miss.
It’s August 1971, and Daniel is about to embark on the most riotous year of his life, in the company of his friends Garrett, Clamor, Dr. Goodleigh and a cast of unforgettable characters that includes a mad Chinese cook, a sometimes invisible dog, an ex-KGB agent, and a kindly stranger who might just be Elvis in disguise.
About the author
Daniel Medway (the real author of this chronicle) is the worthless scion of a proud old Mississippi family that sorely wishes he’d stop mentioning the relationship.
Declared “a waste of a placenta” by his daddy on the day of his birth — a prediction that proved eerily accurate as the years unfolded — Daniel will probably best be remembered for writing some poems that James Dickey (briefly) liked one night on a drunken tear, the Great Harpoon Incident, and the miles of microfilmed evidence the FBI once gathered on him.
Having squandered some early promise in the pursuit of Jim Beam, pretty women, and the perfect stereo system for his complete collection of the Fugs, Daniel recently unearthed a dog-eared copy of his daily chronicle from August 1971 to August 1972 — what he’s since come to regard, affectionately, as his most wasted year.
He hopes this release of these chronicles will serve as an expression of remorse for all the damage he’s managed to do in this world. Former acquaintances might prefer a more personal expression of regret, but if he started making individual apologies at this point, there would be no end to it.
He also hopes you’ll enjoy Wasted Year: The Last Hippies of Ole Miss.
ebook
First published February 23, 2013
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June 12, 2020
This is a laugh-out-loud funny novel, beginning with Douglas Gray's "wasted" part. Think Southern Comfort and collegial. There's something timeless as Gray gets the conversational tone right, with a youthful innocence and resignation, while nailing the Deep South, which hippies pretty much avoided. I like having Baptists and a squirrel among the bad guys. "Wasted Year: The Last Hippies of Ole Miss" is a generous epic (two to three times the size of a typical novel) revolving around a college town in the early '70s, as much of the hippie movement did at the time. I can see why Gray first serialized the story on his blog. It has that kind of day-book flow.
Displaying 1 of 1 review