Land with the solid thud of a body dropped onto a beanbag chair, back in the 1970s where everything and nothing happened all at once.

Wedged between the aspirations of the 1960s and the cynicism of the 1980s, Jensen Coaxials pounding until they blow, Leo Kraft and his fellow Nothing Brothers stagger around suburban NY in search of something. Simultaneously over-parented and invisible, Leo finds inspiration first in heavy metal, then in his Grandfather’s Bronx-fleeing generation and a former hippy sleepover camp, where he feels seen for the first time. We experience the 1970s through the bleary eyes of teens who wait for album releases, attend stadium shows, sit in gas lines, fight with tribal ferocity over music loyalty and generally ridicule and mock everything around them, until they are left with only one thing to mock: themselves.

In The Nothing Brothers, Jeff Rosen recreates a gripping real-time depiction of growing up and through the 1970s, transcending the bell-bottom centered nostalgic treatment of this lost decade. Rosen’s return to the 70s gives the reader a glimpse into the connection between that generational failure and the world we live in today.