Author Guide · Narrative Nonfiction
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In 1974 a crowd in Boston drove Senator Ted Kennedy off a stage as court-ordered busing began, and J. Anthony Lukas, a former New York Times reporter, asked himself what in the world was going on. The answer took him more than seven years: Common Ground (1985), which follows one Black family, one Irish Catholic family and one Yankee family through the busing years and won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Lukas had already won a Pulitzer at the Times in 1968. He wrote one more long book, Big Trouble, about a 1905 murder in Idaho, and died weeks before it came out. This guide covers his five key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 5 key books · 1970–1997 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
J. Anthony Lukas published five full books: The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities (1970), Don’t Shoot — We Are Your Children! (1971), Nightmare (1976), Common Ground (1985) and Big Trouble (1997). Start with Common Ground, his Pulitzer-winning book on busing in Boston; read on for what each of the others covers.
Where to Start with J. Anthony Lukas
If you want his defining book
→ Common Ground (1985) — Boston’s busing crisis through three families.
If you want narrative history
→ Big Trouble (1997) — a murder, a trial and the labour wars of the American West.
If you want Watergate
→ Nightmare (1976) — the Nixon years, assembled from the record.
If you want the 1960s as they happened
→ Don’t Shoot — We Are Your Children! (1971).
5 J. Anthony Lukas Books, in Order
The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities
A short account of the Chicago Conspiracy Trial of 1969–70, in which anti-war activists, the Chicago Seven, were tried over the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. It was his first book.
Don’t Shoot — We Are Your Children!
A collection of portraits of young Americans in the counterculture of the late 1960s. It belongs to the same years and subject as his 1968 Pulitzer-winning Times story, “The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick”, about a teenager from a wealthy Greenwich, Connecticut family who was killed in an East Village tenement basement.
Nightmare
A history of Watergate and the abuses of power in Richard Nixon’s administration. It was built on two long articles Lukas wrote on Watergate for The New York Times Magazine.
Common Ground
Boston in the years of court-ordered school busing after Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr.’s 1974 ruling, told through three families: Rachel Twymon and her children, who are Black and live in the South End; Alice McGoff and her children, Irish Catholics in Charlestown; and Colin and Joan Diver, middle-class Yankee liberals who move into the South End and eventually leave the city. Published by Knopf, it won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. CBS adapted it as a two-part television film in 1990, and the Huntington Theatre staged Common Ground Revisited in 2022.
Big Trouble
On 30 December 1905 a bomb at his front gate in Caldwell, Idaho, killed the former governor Frank Steunenberg. The killer, Harry Orchard, confessed and named leaders of the Western Federation of Miners, among them Bill Haywood, whom Clarence Darrow defended and a jury acquitted. Lukas widens the case into a portrait of class conflict, the Pinkerton detective agency and the mining wars of the early 20th century, and argues in the last section that Haywood was guilty. Published by Simon & Schuster after his death, it was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for History.
In What Order to Read J. Anthony Lukas
None of his books continues another, so you can follow your subject. The first two are short and close to the news of the late 1960s; Nightmare is longer journalism on Watergate; the last two are the big books, each the work of about seven years.
If you read only one, read Common Ground. Go on to Big Trouble if you want to see the same method used on history, without living witnesses.
A reading path
1. Common Ground (1985)
2. Big Trouble (1997)
3. Nightmare (1976)
4. Don’t Shoot — We Are Your Children! (1971)
Everything Else J. Anthony Lukas Published
Beyond the 5 key books: 1 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Shorter work
1
1 book · 1971
- 1971After the Pentagon Papersa short publication based on his Times article on a month in the life of Daniel Ellsberg
The years · 1933–1997
Quick facts about J. Anthony Lukas
- Known for
- Lukas is known for long, deeply reported narrative nonfiction that tells a public crisis through the private lives of ordinary families.
- 1933
- Born in New York
- 1955
- Graduates from Harvard
- 1968
- Pulitzer Prize for the Linda Fitzpatrick story
- 1976
- Nightmare
- 1985
- Common Ground
- 1997
- Dies in New York; Big Trouble published
- Born
- 25 April 1933, New York
- Died
- 5 June 1997, New York City, aged 64
- Education
- Harvard University, magna cum laude, 1955; Nieman Fellow, 1969
- Worked
- The Baltimore Sun, then nine years at The New York Times, at home and abroad
- Prizes
- Pulitzer Prize for reporting (1968) and for General Nonfiction (1986); National Book Award (1985)
- Legacy
- The Lukas Prize Project, run by Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation since 1998
The red mark is 1985: Common Ground, his book about busing in Boston, which won his second Pulitzer Prize.
How J. Anthony Lukas Writes: History Through Families
Lukas built his big books around families rather than institutions. He said the model was C. D. B. Bryan’s Friendly Fire, which made him feel present at a family’s breakfast table, and in Common Ground he braids three households together so that the judge’s orders and the mayor’s politics appear as the families met them.
The reporting is exhaustive. Common Ground took more than seven years, and Big Trouble about as long, running to more than 800 pages, with long digressions into baseball, railroads and the Pinkerton agency. Critics split over that thoroughness: Columbia Journalism Review called Common Ground about as close to the ideal as journalism can get, while the sociologist Robert Dentler objected to its “docudramatic” method.
His start at the Times shows in the clarity of the scenes, but he left daily reporting because, in his words, he increasingly wanted “the nuance too”. For other writers who tell public history through people, see the guides to Robert Caro and Alex Kotlowitz in the related reading below.
Frequently asked questions about J. Anthony Lukas’s books
How many books has J. Anthony Lukas written?
Five full books, all on this page, from The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities (1970) to Big Trouble (1997), plus a short 1971 publication, After the Pentagon Papers, based on his Times article about Daniel Ellsberg.
What are J. Anthony Lukas’s books in order?
The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities (1970), Don’t Shoot — We Are Your Children! (1971), Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years (1976), Common Ground (1985) and Big Trouble (1997).
Where should I start with J. Anthony Lukas?
Common Ground (1985). It is his defining book and the one the others are measured against: Boston’s busing crisis through three families.
What is J. Anthony Lukas’s most famous book?
Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (1985), which won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
What is Common Ground about?
School desegregation and busing in Boston in the 1970s, after Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr.’s 1974 ruling, told through the Twymons, a Black family in the South End; the McGoffs, an Irish Catholic family in Charlestown; and the Divers, a middle-class Yankee family who moved into the South End.
Was Common Ground made into a film?
Yes. CBS broadcast a two-part television adaptation in 1990, with CCH Pounder as Rachel Twymon, Jane Curtin as Alice McGoff and Richard Thomas as Colin Diver. The Huntington Theatre Company in Boston staged a play, Common Ground Revisited, in 2022.
How many Pulitzer Prizes did J. Anthony Lukas win?
Two: in 1968, for “The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick” in The New York Times, and in 1986, for Common Ground.
What is Big Trouble about?
The 1905 bomb murder of the former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg and the 1907 trial of the union leader Bill Haywood, defended by Clarence Darrow and acquitted. Lukas argues in the final section that Haywood was guilty, a conclusion some reviewers found weakly supported. It was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for History.
Is J. Anthony Lukas still alive?
No. He died by suicide in his New York apartment on 5 June 1997, aged 64, after years of depression, shortly after finishing Big Trouble, which was published later that year.
What is the J. Anthony Lukas Prize?
Since 1998 Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation at Harvard have run the Lukas Prize Project in his name. It gives the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize and the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award.
Footnotes
- J. Anthony Lukas — Wikipedia
- Common Ground (Lukas book) — Wikipedia
- Big Trouble (Lukas book) — Wikipedia
- Common Ground: Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, 1986 — The Pulitzer Prizes
- J. Anthony Lukas — Nieman Storyboard
- Common Ground Revisited — The Boston Globe, 2022
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Most writers, I think, want to write the kind of books they like to read.”
— J. Anthony Lukas, interview with the National Book Foundation
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