Reviews - The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture

Super engaging in informative, but incredibly difficult to keep track of all the people. Interesting choice to make it an oral history; I had only read magazine length oral histories before. I like hearing all the voices, but it made it difficult for there to be a cohesive narrative throughout.

sujuv's review

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5.0

I LOVED this book. I briefly worked at the Village Voice out of college and one of my bosses who I honestly knew so little about - Richard Goldstein - is heard from a lot in this oral history so there was nothing about this book that wasn't going to be interesting to me but that said it should appeal to anyone who cares at all about our impoverished media landscape, culture, creativity, and so much more. All I really knew when I interviewed to work at the Voice was that it was cool and so New York and of course specifically New York below 14th street which is where my entire existence was centered but I didn't know the history and what made the paper so important, how willing it was to go up against the powerful and how open it was to alternative arts. Romano has done a remarkable job of bringing all of that to life through oral history. It is just as riveting and exciting as the Voice once was. R.I.P. (though it's still, kind of, alive)

gr8shrimp's review against another edition

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3.75

gotta say, it almost lost me during the listing of the cast of characters for 45 minutes on audio, but glad i skipped ahead.

elisanolasco's review

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funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.25

super informative and great story! there are a lot of characters so sometimes it was hard to keep track and definitely very reporter-like writing style