2009 Reading

[snurri]

1. Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left by Susan Braudy. Portrait of Kathy Boudin--Vietnam-era radical, member of the Weather Underground, convicted for her role in a 1980 Brink's truck robbery where two police officers and a guard were killed--and her family, particularly Leonard Boudin--constitutional lawyer extraordinaire, notably during the McCarthy era. Well-written for the most part, aside from occasional structural stutters, but handicapped by a weirdly passive-aggressive desire to lay the blame for Kathy's behavior on her relationship with her father. Braudy was a college classmate of Kathy's, and manages to be simultaneously too close to her subjects and unable to evoke empathy for them. For me the most useful (this is research) and interesting part of the book was the glimpse into the family dynamic, something lacking from other books by and about radicals who went underground.