1974 by Francine Prose
In her first memoir, the critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose recalls her brief, intense relationship with the activist Tony Russo, one of the men indicted and tried for leaking the Pentagon Papers, during a year when our country changed forever.
We worked directly with Prose on the book design to capture the layered poignancy of youthful idealism fading into the backdrop of 1970s disillusionment. The narrative is framed around the nights she spent with Russo driving manically around San Francisco, listening to his stories—and the disturbing and dramatic end of that relationship in New York.
Touching on the preoccupations of that historical moment—the Vietnam war, drugs, women’s liberation, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, and the Watergate hearings—1974 re-creates the unsettled climate of the era. At once heartfelt and ironic, funny and sad, personal and political, 1974 provides an insightful look at how Francine Prose became a writer and artist during a time when the country, too, was shaping its identity.
The front cover makes literal use of Stack, but not quite to the same extent as the cover for James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk. Supporting typefaces include Platform, which is also seen on the front cover, and Sharp Slab, used on the back cover and inside flaps of the dust jacket.
3 Comments on “1974 by Francine Prose”
Marvelous! In what way did you use Stack? I can tell it’s not Peter Wiegel’s CAT Stack, as that digitization isn’t faithful to the original, with various deviations concerning proportions and details, including a completely different 4 (and K). Did you work with scans of original specimens or Letraset sheets?
Thanks, Florian! I had worked straight from a sample of 96pt Letraset that Dan Rhatigan generously scanned for me at 1200dpi. Funny enough, the sample was a bit too clean for our tastes so we ended up roughening it up a tad.
Oh, that’s fun! Yes, I noticed the rough contours, which subtly add to the 1970s charm. Three cheers for Dan’s Letraslut, which is a great resource both for information and actual vintage transfer type sheets!