The long shadow of the 1960s looms over “Thorn Tree,” a sprawling second novel by Brooklyn-based author Max Ludington. Set largely in Los Angeles in 2017, the book concerns two baby boomers dealing with the fallout from their countercultural pasts. It’s a novel of regrets and reckonings, traumas repressed and returning. Commentary on the allure of dangerous subcultures, combined with fleeting references to the Trump administration, suggests that the conflicts and divisions of the 1960s remain,... Read this story
