Reckoning with long shadow of 1960s counterculture

Book review Thorn Tree By Max Ludington St. Martin’s Press: 400 pages, $29 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. The long shadow of the 1960s looms over “Thorn Tree,” a sprawling second novel by Brooklyn-based author Max Ludington. Unfortunately, “Thorn Tree,” like Daniel’s early attempts at sculpture, creaks and buckles under the weight of its contrivances. The Dead are playing the Fillmore!” one character exclaims, as if the late 1960s required clearer signposting even than the tableaux of “thick-maned men in jeans and beads, willowy women shorn of inhibition, whispering through the grass, all touching each other easily, draping themselves over each other on the warm earth.” All of this undercuts the dramatic heft of Daniel and Jack’s story.