Rebel Souls by Justin Martin Spotlight!

About the Book

September 1, 2014       
$27.99         
Hardcover       
Biography/Literature       
352 pages      
ISBN: 978-0-306-82226-1

Justin Martin is the first to write a book following the lives of a motley and impoverished group of artists thought of as America’s original Bohemians. On the eve of the Civil War, Henry Clapp Jr., inspired by his time in Paris, becomes the leader of the bohemian movement in New York, making Pfaff’s Saloon, at the intersection of Broadway and Bleecker Street, its headquarters. Though mostly forgotten in the modern era, this prominent band of art revolutionaries had connections with influential members of society, including Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Consisting of such people like actor Edwin Booth, stand-up comic Artemus Ward, author of The Hasheesh Eater Fitz Hugh Ludlow, performer of The Naked Lady routine Adah Manken, and numerous talented others, the crowd attracted Walt Whitman in that crucial time before he became branded as the Good Gray Poet. Pfaff’s permissive atmosphere and lively conversations influenced the evolution of his career and masterpiece, Leaves of Grass.

A veteran biographer, having written other acclaimed biographies such as Greenspan: The Man Behind the Money and Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon, Justin Martin once again shows off his skill in this group profile as he illustrates, after meticulous research, how the imported-from-France bohemian culture fostered the still booming American tradition of rebel art.

“Along the way, he paid one final visit to Pfaff’s. Pfaff was still the proprietor, rounder now, grayer now, but jolly as ever. Herr Pfaff went and retrieved a bottle of the establishment’s finest wine. He poured a glass for Whitman and took a seat across from him. Then they talked about the old times, about that little vaulted room in the Broadway basement, and about the Bohemians, Clapp, Clare, O’Brien, and the rest, most dead, all gone. ‘Ah, the friends and names and frequenters,’ marveled Whitman, ‘those times, that place.’”—from Chapter 18

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About the Author

My latest book Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians (Da Capo Press) will be out in September. This is the first book ever written about a decadent and incredibly influential artists’ circle that hung out at Pfaff’s saloon in NYC during the 1850s. Among its members: a young Walt Whitman; Artemus Ward, America’s first standup comic; psychedelic drug pioneer Fitz Hugh Ludlow; and Adah Isaacs Menken, an actress notorious for her “"Naked Lady" act.

I am also the author of three biographies, most recently Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted (Da Capo, June 2011). Genius tells the story of one of the most important figures in the history of America. Olmsted was a fervent abolitionist, noted journalist, Civil War hero, early environmentalist, and the landscape architect behind New York's Central Park, Boston's Emerald Necklace, Stanford University, the Biltmore Estate and dozens of other green spaces around the U.S.

Previous biography subjects: Alan Greenspan and Ralph Nader. My Greenspan bio was selected as a notable book for 2001 by the New York Times Book Review. My Nader bio was a primary source for An Unreasonable Man, an Academy Award nominated documentary 

I have also written a number of children's books for use in the classroom, everything from biographies to fractured fairy tales to titles designed to help young readers learn parts of speech. 

I'm a generalist. I love to write on varied subjects for both kids and adults. 

I'm a 1987 graduate of Rice University in Houston, TX. I live with my wife and twin sons in Forest Hills Gardens, NY, a neighborhood designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.