The Beginning Was the End: Devo in Ohio

Author David Giffels joins us to read from and discuss his latest book, The Beginning Was the End: Devo in Ohio.

Co-written with Jade Dellinger, The Beginning Was the End is the definitive account of Devo’s vibrant early history. The Beginning Was the End features more than eighty never-before-seen images of the band as it tells the unlikely story of a collection of creative misfits who formed a musical kinship, drawing material and inspiration from the industrial Midwestern environs of Northeast Ohio.

With the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings as a catalyst, Devo channeled protopunk energy into a sprawling art project that would pioneer the use of music videos, innovate technology in pop music, define the aesthetic of the 1980s New Wave/MTV era, and maintain an edge of social, political, and cultural criticism that continues their relevance fifty years after their formation. 

Free & open to the public. Registration required.

Copies of Giffels’ books will be available for sale & signing courtesy of Joseph-Beth Cincinnati.

About David Giffels

David Giffels is the acclaimed author of Barnstorming Ohio: To Understand America; Furnishing Eternity: A Father, a Son, a Coffin, and a Measure of Life; The Hard Way on Purpose: Essays and Dispatches From the Rust Belt; All the Way Home; and the coauthor, with Jade Dellinger, of Are We Not Men? We Are Devo! ;and, with Steve Love, Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron.

A former Akron Beacon Journal columnist, his writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic.com, Parade, The Wall Street Journal, Esquire.com, Grantland.com, The Iowa Review, and many other publications. He also wrote for the MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head.

His awards include the Cleveland Arts Prize for literature, two Ohioana Book Awards, the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and a General Excellence award from National Society of Newspaper Columnists. He was selected as the Cuyahoga County Public Library Writer in Residence for 2018-2019.

Giffels is a professor of English at the University of Akron, where he teaches creative nonfiction in the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program. This is his fourth time as a Mercantile Library lecturer.