Famous People I Have Known (Kentucky Voices)

Mr. McClanahan makes us laugh with his recollections of the innocent beginnings of the 1960s...and that laughter is a value all by itself. -- Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

McClanahan's picaresque account of his immersion into the revolutionary excesses of the 1960s -- the consciousness expanded 'through the miracle of chemistry, ' endless parties, many protests -- reminds readers that at the heart of that frequently maligned decade was a great deal of fun. -- Lexington Herald-Leader

A curious combination of raw four-letter explicitness and high literary style.... The combination is exhilarating. -- People

McClanahan's autobiographical accounts are so lively that they sound more like fiction; his outrageous experiences with trendsetters and cultural luminaries of the 1960s are reported with the detail of a retrospectively clear-headed but capricious artist. -- Publishers Weekly

Your 'Ken Kesey, Jean Genet, the Revolution, et Moi' is fabulous. I had never heard of Kesey's encounter with Genet before, but in your pages I could see and hear it all. You've captured both of them perfectly. 'Furthurmore: An Afterword' is great stuff, too. In fact, the whole book has a wonderful rollicking momentum. -- Tom Wolfe, from a letter to Ed McClanahan

Most people who have had as much fun as Ed McClanahan are dead. -- Bob Edwards

McClanahan's pungent tales of the fools he's known and the fools he's been will linger long in the reader's mind. -- Newsweek

As a product of literary art, Famous People I Have Known is unique and great. As autobiography, it is peerless. As social history, it is an act of sanity redeemed by humor. As comedy, it is ever nourished by good sense. Please bring it back into print and keep it in print, so that it will be always available to the people of Kentucky, whose treasure it rightfully is. -- Wendell Berry