Hurricane Street

By Ron Kovic

"Hurricane Street...[is] another raw expose on the cost of war. The book, which he calls a prequel, drills deep into the 17-day drama of a 1974 sit-in and hunger strike staged by Kovic and a band of fellow wounded veterans who took the federal building on Wilshire Boulevard by storm...The book is an unflinching anti-war declaration, written in blood and the sweat of too many haunted nights by a Vietnam Marine Corps sergeant who later opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
--Los Angeles Times

"The author of Born on the Fourth of July (1976) recounts the brief 1974 movement he initiated to change how Veterans Affairs hospitals cared for wounded soldiers...The great strength of this book is that the author never minces words. With devastating candor, he memorializes a short-lived but important movement and the men who made it happen. Sobering reflections on past treatment of America's injured war veterans."
--Kirkus Reviews

"[A] compelling snapshot of early 1980s activism....Without social media or cell phones to boost the signal, it was Kovic's flair for the dramatic and ability to marshal reporters that turned the protest into a battle victory....Kovic's updates on the fates of his fellow veterans provide a memorable and bittersweet conclusion."
--Publishers Weekly

"The author of the bestseller Born on the Fourth of July writes an impassioned and timely memoir about the 1974 American Veterans Movement that will strike a chord with veterans and their families today."
--Publishers Weekly, Top 10 Pick for Spring 2016

"Kovic, a Vietnam veteran paralyzed from the waist down and the author of the seminal war memoir Born on the Fourth of July (1976), looks back to the spring of 1974, when he led a two-week hunger strike in the Los Angeles office of U.S. Senator Alan Cranston . . . Kovic's personal tale is also a timely topical book as veterans' mental and physical health care remain woefully insufficient."
--Booklist

"Kovic has also penned a new book, Hurricane Street, that will be released on July 4th. The new book recounts how in 1974, the author and other injured veterans staged a sit-in and hunger strike to demand better treatment for vets."
--Rolling Stone

"Renowned antiwar activist Kovic, a Vietnam veteran, delivers a powerful memoir detailing his organization of the American Veterans Movement (AVM) during the mid-1970s . . . This chronicle will resonate with those interested in the all-too-human effects of war and the challenges faced by our wounded warriors."
-- Library Journal

"Forty years after the release of Born on the Fourth of July, the 1976 memoir that became the 1989 Academy Award-winning film starring Tom Cruise, author Ron Kovic gives us Hurricane Street, a memoir about his 1974 movement to change the way Veterans Affairs hospitals cared for wounded soldiers."
--Parade

In the spring of 1974, as the last American troops were being pulled out of Vietnam, Ron Kovic and a small group of other severely injured veterans in a California VA hospital launched the American Veterans Movement. In a phenomenal feat of political organizing, Kovic corralled his fellow AVM members into staging a sit-in, and then a hunger strike, in the Los Angeles office of Senator Alan Cranston, demanding better treatment of injured and disabled veterans.

This was a short-lived and chaotic but ultimately successful movement to improve the deplorable conditions in VA hospitals across the country. Hurricane Street is their story--one that resonates deeply today--told

• Language: English
• Publisher: Akashic Books
• Release date: Jun 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781617754524

Ron Kovic

RON KOVIC served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War. He was paralyzed from his chest down in combat in 1968 and has been in a wheelchair ever since. Along with Oliver Stone, Kovic was the co-screenwriter of the 1989 Academy Award-winning film based on the book (Tom Cruise stars in the role of Kovic in the film). 

Reviews for Hurricane Street

[hotwolfie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I received this as an Early Review Copy, along with Ron Kovic's other book Born on the Fourth of July. I'm surprised by how fast I went through both books! Hurricane Street takes off after Born on the Fourth of July, and follows more of Kovic's political activism. It was a really interesting book. I like Kovic's writing style a lot. He's very to the point, but his writing isn't dry. You can really get a sense of the raw emotion he put into sharing his story. This is a book that'll stick with you a long time after finishing it.

[darcia_10 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When I review a memoir of any sort, I do my best to disconnect the writing quality from the person and his/her story. As I sit here contemplating my rating for this book. I'm finding that separation is an impossibility. The writing style is fine, though not overly compelling. But the story is compelling, as is the author. And I've realized that, with this book, the writing quality is secondary to the story told. Ron Kovic lived through a tumultuous time in our history. He was at the forefront of the drive for change in a system so broken that winning the fight for any sort of change at all must have seemed a monumental challenge. Kovic and the men he teams up with are all war-damaged, still adjusting to their new bodies and the new limitations. Yet, they are not about to lie back and give up. They don't wallow; they fight. We see this all through Ron Kovic's eyes. What must it be like for a paralyzed war veteran to be neglected and abused in the very hospital designed to nurture him? Ron Kovic will show you exactly what that was like. His treatment as a disabled war veteran, and the treatment so many of our veteran's still endure, is shameful. Ron Kovic's strength of spirit is inspiring. I admire his resilience and persistence. His story is a part of our history that we all need to see through his eyes.

[nmele_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Some forty years after his first book, Born on the Fourth of July, Ron Kovic tells the story of his and his veteran friends' efforts to improve care and conditions at VA hospitals. It is an important story, and Kovic tells it well, but as I read I kept remembering how the same struggle for treatment continues for veterans wounded in our present day wars. That awareness cast a cloud over the book, which may be what Kovic intended.

[dandelionroots · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

In February of 1974, a disabled Vietnam veteran stages a hunger strike in a California senator's office to protest the conditions at VA hospitals around the country. He's a pretty uncompelling writer considering he lived the events.

[octafoil40 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I really cannot recommend this paperback book to anyone. I too am a Vietnam Veteran.Yet this slim book just is not well composed. Much of its sentences are needlessly staccato.And basically it just doesn't add much useful information beyond his previous book"Born On The Fourth Of July"

[loisb-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hurricane Street is a compelling, gripping and thought-provoking fictionalized memoir of the author's activism following his paralyzing injury in Vietnam. It is fiction to the extent that some names and other facts are changed, and that some characters are composites, but the story reads like a detailed memoir. It is yet another sad story of our nation's treatment of its veterans, and tragic in that the VA has still not changed. For those who lived through the Vietnam war, it is an agonizing reminder of the personal side of war.

[kcshankd · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Librarything Early Reviewer copy. Unfortunately I can't recommend this book. Unless you are specifically a disabled vet advocate, or Ron Kovic fan, this book won't appeal to you at all. It is not well written, repetitive, and not at all comparable to the magnificent Born on the 4th of July.

[jcgirl-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hurrican Street tells the story of disabled veteran Ron Kovic during his 1974 fight for all veterans rights for proper health care from the Veterans Affairs. The book chronicles how the veterans take over Senator Alan Cranston's office in Los Angeles in protest to speak to the head of the VA in Washington, D.C. Donald E. Jonhson. After a 17-day hunger strike, the veterans finally were given the chance to talk to Johnson and get some improvements. But after 40 years the VA still needs to put the returning veterans first in medical care. I recommend all Americans read this book so that as a nation we never forget that we are free because of the brave, and these veterans are entitled to the best healthcare possible after their ultimate sacrifice to our country.