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About the Author:

Phil Polizatto attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.  Before devoting his full time to writing novels, he was a feature writer for the overseas division of UPI, a copywriter for CBS, and an award-winning corporate film producer.  He wrote the score, lyrics and book for the musical, Pokin’ Around! and immortalized the songs of Cowboy Bob in the unforgettable CD, Cowboy Bob: The Morbid Years.  Mr. Polizatto is a published poet and a regular contributor to a popular arts and literary journal, as well as the online magazine, Intriguism.  Hunga Dunga is his first published novel.  He resides in the Pacific Northwest and is currently working on his second novel, Saltydog.

Book Review from Intriguism.com online magazine, March 2009

Editorial Reviews

“Polizatto is an unapologetic hippie and Hunga Dunga is his homage to hippiedom.  He does an amazing job of showing us things through a new set of eyes and writing erotic scenes that are very hot and at the same time have a real innocence about them.  Hunga Dunga is outrageous and very, very funny!” – BottomLine Magazine

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“... This is damned good stuff!  Superlative dialogue.  Written with a comfort and assuredness that vacuumed me into that world.  Excellent.  Amusing and poignant...” -  Colonel, Retired, U.S. Army Donald McRae, author of Montana Gold and Conflict of Interest

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“Phil… you have given the world an amazing (and accurate) picture of that very special time in history.  You’ve woven such a sweet and beautiful story in such a conversational manner, that all the intellectual references gently drip like honey so that anyone can partake in the feast.

You have a terrific writing style, which is easy to follow, and very seductive right to the end, with your smooth and graceful narrative.  To sum up, wow – it’s good!  I am disappointed only because it does not continue for another thousand pages, but even that would not be enough.  You've created a living hero in your book while disclosing the essence of a cultural phenomenon that has been taken for granted for far too long. 

Your novel is a magical and revealing journey that never sounds phony or contrived.  The end delivered on the promise to tie any loose ends into a satisfying and rewarding conclusion.  The book held my attention from the first word to the last.  The characters became close friends.  I have no real criticisms or editorial comments . . .  I like the way you bring back characters and keep them as part of the novel, letting the story unwind and tie everything together right up to the end.  Congratulations . . . I know the book needed to be written and you’ve done an amazing job.  Thanks, Lee” – Lee Balan, author of Exhumations and Alien Journal

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“Wow, this is NOT now!  But it is incredible.  Like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland, it’s as though somethings happens to Giacco everyday.” – A. Neal, author of The Complete Works of an Incomplete Man and Simian Sacraments

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“What a blockbuster of a noveloony you got here, daddyo!  Wow and zowee, I’m shakin’ my fingers like they just got burned.  What a fire! It makes me nostalgic for the wisdom and truth of the message that was coming through in the 60’s and 70’s, (a message) that seems to have gotten increasingly trounced since then.

…this book is definitely Kerouacian in its scope, both on the human (cast of characters – and what characters!) and geographical scale.  For those who have ears to hear, Hunga Dunga is a reminder of some of our deepest and hardest won truths.”  Randolph Maxted, poet and publisher, The Intriguist Literary and Arts Magazine

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"It isn't every day that I sit long enough to read seven chapters of any book in one sitting.  But I could not stop reading the book - HUNGA DUNGA - A True Novel - by Philip Polizatto, as the rest of the country watched the Pittsburgh Steelers beat Arizona, on this Sunday afternoon.

With brilliant candor, Polizatto takes us on a wild ride through the Age of Aquarius during the 1960's, using explicit verbiage.  With a sensitivity toward the young of the period, whose dreams of a world without war, devoted their energies toward PEACE and LOVE, focusing energies toward a spiritual awakening (albeit through drugs) in a time of chaos and shifting of traditional mores.

      
I can't wait to finish the book. I predict it will become a best seller in a very short time." - Patricia D'Alessandro, Writer/Poet/Photographer, Author of The Weaving of a Being, Croce D'Oro, and Voce Velatura.

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“Literature usually explores the themes of an unusual person in a common situation, or an ordinary person in an unusual situation.  Hunga Dunga is an incredible book about an incredible journey during an incredible time by an incredible character as described by an incredible author.  Phil Polizatto’s gift to humanity is the ability to bring the heady aspects of the universe at large and lay them at your feet.

Hunga Dunga is sweet, sexy, funny, and undeniably profound.  The meaning of the story transcends words on a page – and that’s what books are supposed to do.  Polizatto has bared his soul and what we come to see is that the power of humanity lies in the ability to be humane.  Not to give too much away, Hunga Dunga is a map of the spirit in which all roads lead to the Self.” – A. Neal, author of The Complete Works of an Incomplete Man, Simian Sacraments, and editor of Intriguism.com online magazine.

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" San Francisco in the late 60's and 70's was our wonderworld and Giacco's journeys take us back to a time of discovery of self and true family. From HungaDunga's dinner table to the living rooms of countless communes dotting the City, grab your passport as Polizatto takes us from the streets of SF to the islands, to a dome in Twisp and across a continent or two in the pre-pandemic times we thought would last forever. Share this journey from a time when free love, enlightenment, creativity, and psychedelic meanderings were all there were to dream of in a day" - Lindalou Schram-Williams, author of Shinto Letters from Steve Richmond: A Meat Poet's Last Correspondence

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Just as Kerouac and Burroughs captured the heart of the Beat Generation, so does Polizatto capture the Hippie Generation. He has, in fact, captured it like no one else has. It matters not it you are of the right age to have been a part of that scene or, even if you are, whether you experienced a life as adventurous as Giacco Giordano's. You will understand this quintessential period of the late '60s-mid-'70s culture much better -- and even long for it -- after reading Hunga Dunga. Skip or skim the explicit sex scenes if you want, but DO NOT miss anything else -- especially Giacco's experiences with the Department of Social Services, communal living at Hunga Dunga, and the appreciation of solitude in nature (personally, my favorite parts of the book). Polizatto handles it all, by the way, with such skill that you will be sucked in. I could go on, but, as Giacco/Polizatto says, "Everything is needless to say." – Janice Kleinschmidt, editor, Palm Springs Life magazine.

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Reader Reviews

Hunga Dunga is pure joy! -  Janice Sukaitis, (San Francisco, CA, Feb. 28, 2010)

I savor every page. This is not a formula read and one feels the difference immediately soaring through the invisible hills and valleys of moral challenge during the 1970s. I am grateful that this spiritual seeker shared his authentic journey. I travel along like mist under the radar of America's mainstream values: hard working, sometimes dizzy, but always seeking truth. I embrace playful love affairs and from it, find wider margins of identity. I struggle with selfishness constantly and learn to give up old baggage. I listen to nature and find true wealth in her gifts.All who travel with Giacco become better human beings.
Explicit love scenes usually make me cringe, but Giacco's are sacred communions by master wordsmith, Phil Polizatto.
Others have tried to tell this story, but the results have been anecdotes for shock value.Polizatto shows us why and how the hippie came into being through the character of Giacco and why he was such a blessing to those suffocated by America's class capitalism.The book is so nourishing, I just can't wait for the movie.
 

YOU ARE A GRAND WRITER, MISTER P!!!! –  Linda, S.W. (Sonoma County, CA)

Cosmic, December 28, 2008 – Murryay Balan (SoCal)

Fantastic Journey !, - Timothy J. DiMarco, Seattle, WA, December 15, 2008

An entertaining trip to say the least! I was a little young to experience Woodstock and the Hippie movement first hand, but I knew that something really important was taking place. Hunga Dunga fills in the gaps and illuminates the motivation of a generation of young people who were in search of "Enlightenment" and were focused on making the world a better place for all and had a blast doing it! Though this book is light hearted and fun, it is a must read for those of us who stand ready to try again to change the world for the better. Enjoy the trip!

Beyond Awesome! - Debby Daily, Forestville, CA

GREAT STORY, GREAT WRITING, Donald W. Mclane - Twisp, WA

A spirited and wonderful romp thru the 60's and 70's. It wasn't just the sex and drugs and rock'n roll, although there's plenty of that fun in Hunga Dunga. It's a picture of youth on a journey - across America, around the world and back to nature. Everywhere Giacco goes there are characters of the era that you will recognize and love. While he is practicing a love which is unjudgemental, free from tradition and constriction, 1000% open to the sensuality of nature, desire and character. Living not without morality, but with love as morality. A conscious choice to have a roll in the Aquarian age. To Be......

And more, there's the experiment in communal living. Hunga Dunga gives a real account of San Francisco in the 70's - at the center of the many communes actually working. It's a fantastic scene hilariously described. The tensions of making a commune survive are heightened by the secretive search for enlightenment. And as it really happened, something was lost and something was gained as we grew up with the era. It's all here in Hunga Dunga. The best flashback you could ask for. Don't miss it!

EVERYTHING IS NEEDLESS TO SAY - J. L. Bell, Palm Springs, CA

I LOVE THIS BOOK! – Jim Komarek, Sebastapol, CA

“I LOVE THIS BOOK!  It’s like homemade, warm mac 'n cheese, delivered to my door in this rain!  Yummy and comforting!  With no dishes and no cleaning up!  I LOVE THIS BOOK!”

Blown Away, Ruth Mcnally "filmbluecat" (Seattle, WA)

Hunga Dunga brings to life one of the most important eras in our history - a chaotic, passionate, revolutionary, crazy, idealistic, hopeful time. This adventure gets at the core of that time and it is riveting. For those who lived through the 60s and those who did not this is a must read. And for anyone who loves good literature, humor and great insight, this is a book for you. I loved it!!!!!!

A BOOK FOR ALL GENERATIONS – Karissa McLane, Winthrop, WA

Turn on Tune In and Drop Into Hunga Dunga!, by Lois J. Garland,  Bartlett, NH 

Hats off to Polizatto for gifting us with Giaccos' story! So often the true depth of Giacco's era is lost when it is simplistically defined as a time where the youth counter culture "turned on, tuned in and dropped out" this definition by no means fully acknowledges what was occurring at the time, nor does it acknowledge the residual impact the era has on our culture today.
Giacco's story occurs in an era when many young people broke the bonds of cultural traditions such as the nuclear family; the relentless drive of capitalism; the constraints of materialism; strictly defined sexual norms and a blindly assumed Christian homogeny, to welcome exploration of the vast continuum of alternative possibilities.

Brave young souls like Giacco, and other great explorers of culture and thought like him, were bold enough to veer sharply off the path of the cultural norm, and thankfully they didn't fully drop out. Many still live by the values they explored during that era and many of those values are enmeshed in our culture today.
We work to refine the laws which protect our right to pursue our spirituality and faith in whatever form we choose, as well as laws to protect our right not to pursue faith at all. We have more freedom to live according to our sexual preferences and to structure our families as we choose. We have support groups, food co-ops; arts alliances, organic produce markets; social and environmental protections and much more seeded in part by the likes of Giacco and friends, who really I'm happy to say, dropped in with their consciousness, not out.
Thanks to Giacco and all the explorers of his time for what they have given us, and thanks to Polizatto as well, for his skillful rendering of Giacco's story. Hunga Dunga should be at the top of everyone's must read list!

The Hunga Dunga Trilogy, now in one volume!  Available at fine bookstores everywhere.

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