Amid the trans­for­ma­tions of post-World War II Amer­i­ca, Braudy reveals his younger self as a some­what clue­less nar­ra­tor in the throes of deci­pher­ing the innu­en­do and sub­terfuge of a con­fus­ing world. Was rock-‘n’-roll real­ly a Com­mu­nist plot? Was ​“juve­nile delin­quen­cy” actu­al­ly a threat to social order? Was ​“con­for­mi­ty” tru­ly the era’s norm? Weav­ing a per­son­al nar­ra­tive through the wider social con­text of dis­il­lu­sion­ment and apoc­a­lyp­tic fears, Try­ing To Be Cool reveals the vibrant eclec­ti­cism of a decade too often dis­missed as a peri­od of conventionality.