'Just a Shot Away' redefines the 1969 Altamont tragedy as a racial crime
From the start of Just a Shot Away: Peace, Love, and Tragedy with the Rolling Stones at Altamont, it’s clear how Saul Austerlitz will frame his searing account of the Bay Area festival that was supposed to be the West Coast version of Woodstock but culminated in the fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old African American named Meredith Hunter.
The disastrous daylong concert is often depicted as the symbolic end of the 1960s. But for Austerlitz, who opens the book with a visit to Hunter’s sister to learn about
