One Week in America: The 1968 Notre Dame Literary Festival and a Changing Nation

by Patrick Parr

One Week in America is a day-by-day narrative of the 1968 Notre Dame Sophomore Literary Festival and the national events that grabbed the spotlight—the anti–Vietnam War movement, Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision not to seek re-election, and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. 

Author Patrick Parr takes readers back to one chaotic week on the Notre Dame campus, when college students, talented authors, and presidential candidates grappled with major events, creating one of the most historic literary festivals of the twentieth century.  

The major players in this story are names that just about every household in the United States had heard of before: Ralph Ellison, Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, William F. Buckley Jr., Granville Hicks, Wright Morris.  

On one particular week, sixties politics and literature converged amid the chaos of a changing nation. 

Genres: Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

Published March 2, 2021

About the author

Patrick Parr's first book was The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age, a 2019 Washington State Book Award finalist. The book was the culmination of five years of research, which included more than a dozen interviews with friends who'd known King during his years at Crozer Theological Seminary (1948-1951).

For his second book, Parr used newspaper archives and completed interviews with over twenty Notre Dame graduates to write One Week in America: The 1968 Notre Dame Literary Festival and a Changing Nation. Parr also incorporated into the story never-before-published letters from festival authors Joseph Heller (Catch-22), Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man), Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five), Wright Morris (The Field of Vision) and Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead). The book also depicts the last week of Martin Luther King Jr.'s life, and Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency.

Parr's third book is Malcolm Before X, published by the University of Massachusetts Press.

Other work has appeared in The Atlantic, American History Magazine, Politico, History Today, The American Prospect, The New York Daily News and The Boston Globe. In 2014 he was awarded an Artist Trust Fellowship for his literary career. He lives with his wife near Tokyo and teaches writing at Lakeland University Japan.

Reviews

[David Gallianetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched, fast moving look at one of the most tumultuous weeks of the Sixties. The author draws from interviews with organizers and attendees of the star-studded 1968 Notre Dame Literary Festival, and enhances it with what was happening elsewhere that incredible week ... most notably LBJ announcing his decision not to seek reelection, and days later the murder of MLK. The behind the scenes of the festival and the interplay between these literary legends and the college kids who pulled this off is fun to read. A terrific addition to the seemingly always growing look back at this unforgettable year.

[Arthur O'Keefe · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent narrative set against the backdrop of the social and political turmoil that characterized that year. LBJ's decision not to seek a second term, MLK Jr.'s assassination, and conflict over the Vietnam War are all explored in the context of the Notre Dame Literary Festival of 1968, which was carried out to great success by a student committee starting out with a budget of under 3 dollars. If you love 20th-century history, you'll love this book.

[Yard Gnome · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really interesting book about a really profound and tragic time in American history.