Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Red Diapers is the
first anthology of autobiographical writings by the children of American
communists. These memoirs, short stories, and poems reflect the joys and
perils of growing up in a subculture defined by its opposition to some
of society's most deeply held values. How red diaper babies have come
to terms with their political inheritance is the theme of this compelling
anthology.
Some contributors have fond
memories of family activism; others recall the past with ambivalence or
even pain. The authors range in age from their twenties to their eighties.
Some, such as Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein and sixties activist Bettina
Aptheker, are widely known themselves; some are the children of well-known
American leftists, including Jeff Lawson, son of blacklisted screenwriter
John Howard Lawson, and Robert Meeropol, son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
In disparate voices, the contributors elaborate on how their parents attempted
to pass on to them the torch of radical politics.
Table of Contents
Memories from the twenties / Peggy Dennis -- California girlhood / Lil Carlson -- From red diapers to protest banners / Ruth Hunter -- Daughter and granddaughter of the Finnish left / Sirkka Tuomi Holm -- Passage to Siberia / Doris C. Kaplan -- The teachings of Karl Marx for boys and girls infiltrates Alabama / Marge Frantz -- An ordinary life / Jeff Lawson -- The old red granny / Mindy Rinkewich -- December 1947 / Marianne Ware -- Commiebastid / Albert Vetere Lannon -- Proletaria and me: a memoir in progress / Dorothy M. Zellner -- Southern discomfort / Maxine Defelice -- Red sisters of the bourgeoisie / Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall and Harriet Fraad -- What did I know and when did I know it? / Sonia Jaffe Robbins -- Black and red all over / Marylouise Patterson -- When life was a party / Stephanie Allan -- Memoir / Rachel Fast Ben-Avi -- Excerpt from pledge of allegiance / Mark Lapin -- What's red hot and what's not: circa 1950s / Norma Allen -- American heritage / Nina Olff -- The little red superego / Gilda Zwerman -- Two poems / Gene Dennis -- Excerpt from in my mother's house / Kim Chernin -- Mistaken identities / David Wellman --