Novels That Deal with the Radical Sixties

[Patricia Abbott]

Can any of you think of novels that deal with the radical movements of the latish sixties other than Marge Piercey's Vida and Roth's American Pastoral. This would be the late sixties, not books like Revolutionary Road or similar earlier sixties fare. Thanks much.

[Tribe]

Oi! How could I have forgotten about Dog Soldiers! Indeed!

[Elizabeth Zelvin]

The Marge Piercy novel I most associate with the 60s is SMALL CHANGES. In mysteries, Lia Matera's Willa Jansson series has a quirky perspective in that the young lawyer protagonist is constantly being embarrassed by the persistent radicalism of her old-hippie parents. In HAVANA TWIST, she has to go to Cuba to get them out of jail. And how about Doris Lessing and Margaret Drabble? Sorry I can't be more specific. Lessing's THE GOOD TERRORIST sprang to mind, but it's much later. Liz

[Libby Hellmann]

This isnt a novel, but RADS: A True Story of the End of the Sixties reads like one. It's a history of the Army-Math bombing at U of Wisconsin in Madison. As it happens, I'm writing a novel that takes place -- in part -- during 1968-1970, and RADS was extremely helpful in recreating the environment. Freaky, actually.

[Sarah Weinman]

Second the mention of EAT THE DOCUMENT, which is brilliant. And though it's more mid-70s, Christopher Sorrentino's TRANCE (about the SLA and Patty Hearst) is worth a look, too.

[David Terrenoire]

Paul Theroux's Mosquito Coast dealt with an off-the-rails environmentalist, a product of the back to the earth movement taken to extremes.

I'd almost forgotten that one.

[Laura Root]

A little later, but Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg?

[Mark Coggins]

How about the recent book, The Do-Re-Mi by Ken Kuhlken. Here's a review on January Magazine:

http://www.januarymagazine.com/crfiction/do-re-mi.html

[Naomi Hirahara]

This would be a little later in the seventies, but what about Susan Choi's American
Woman? It deals with the Symbionese Liberation Army and kidnapping of
Patty Hearst.

[Patricia Abbott]

Hey, thanks guys. My husband has a big stack he's winding his way through. Borders must be very grateful. (We have no indies around here.)

[David Skibbins]

High Priuestess stars a Weather Underground guy who has stayed underground since the sixties. His radical past catches up with him, and there ate flashbacks to those days in the book.