Review: Ringolevio: A Life Played for Keeps

Ringolevio: A Life Played for Keeps by Emmett Grogan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Is this truth and autobiography or more histrionics than history? I don't mind that Eugene "Emmett" Grogan calls himself Kenny Wisdom for this first act of this memoir any more than I care that Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five is not the real name of Vonnegut's comrade-in-arms Edward R. Crone, Jr. I don't know that anything is not factual here, it may all be psychologically correct. Grogan did not appear to care enough about fact checking as to filling in details like looking up the name of Caresse Crosby to identify the Italian village's benefactor he heard about, etc. So, maybe some things are misremembered, or whatever. Either way, this is an activist who started on the NYC streets as a ruffian and user and died there at 36 from an overdose. In between, he traveled, he co-founded The Diggers and found a place in-between Robin Hood and The Salvation Army to put his criminal inclinations and prodigious energy to work making a free frame of reference for hippies, Black Panthers, Methodists, runaways, and more to consider as a lifestyle alternative. Such prodigious energy that there was actually no more one Emmett Grogan than one Dread Pirate Roberts? This author only calls such instances frauds and does more name-calling than name-dropping: Timothy Leary was more drug pusher than prophet, Abbie Hoffman a plagiarist and Eldridge Cleaver crazy and homicidal. This is a unique journey through the 60s. Like most stories of that decade, something coalesced post-Beat that seemed beautiful full of potential while blossoming during The Summer of Love only to descend into murders, lost friendships, and substance abuse before the 70s were underway.

View all my reviews