Fugitive Days (2001)
Author: Bill Ayers
Genre: Nonfiction (Memoir)
Plot Summary: One of the founding members of 1960’s radical anti-war group, The Weather Underground, Bill Ayers tells his side of the story in Fugitive Days without boastfulness or apology. Beginning with his childhood explorations of drugs and youth culture, the adventurism of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Ayers paints a picture of a childhood of privilege and picket-fences lusting for life experience. After high school at a boarding school and years of dabbling in college, Ayers finds his political calling in philosophical texts and the Vietnam anti-war movement. Ayers describes his political and social philosophies in depth, taking time to quote political thinkers and rethink his positions of the time. From his early days in SDS to his more militant days in The Weather Underground, Ayers boldly and sanely gives a rationale for his motivations. As Ayers describes it, The Weather Underground was formed in response to a growing notion that anti-war activists should “bring the war home.” Indeed The Weather Underground, and all the cells it spawned, brought the war home to military recruiting sites, police precincts, and most famously the Pentagon, using homemade bombs and crude explosives, leaving their signature claim letters for the press and public to find after the fact. Terrorists to many, heroes to others, The Weather Underground disbanded after the end of the Vietnam war. This narrative is largely the story of getting to the point of desperation where violence made sense, living underground, turning oneself in to live a more public family life, and finally committing this hundred-mile-an-hour life to paper, reflecting, connecting.Geographical Setting: various cities, United States
Time Period: 1965-1975
Appeal Characteristics: The themes of political radicalism and activism, socialism, communism, anarchism will appeal to readers interested in folks who have committed their lives to struggles for social justice. Further, explorations of white privilege, anti-racism and ethical activism abound. The setting of 1960’s America in the midst of a political and cultural revolution will appeal to both those who lived it and those who look back for lessons. Discussions of memory and the practice of writing a memoir, what is truth, will appeal to readers with a literary sensibility, as will the passionate and sometimes flowery prose. The pacing of the novel is perfect, even though it is obvious that Ayers has lived through and seen a lot, his narrative is cohesive and coherent while still suggesting there’s more to the story. It moves at an even pace and keeps the reader interested through personal relationships, discussions of politics and history, and a subtle humor and wit that becomes characteristic by the end of the memoir.
Read-alikes: Readers who enjoyed learning about The Weather Underground would greatly enjoy to see The Weather Underground by Sam Green and Bill Siegel, a fascinating documentary about the life and times of the group including interviews with numerous past members, most notably Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn. Readers who would like to read a more straight forward and scholarly history of The Weather Underground would enjoy Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity by Dan Berger. Readers who enjoyed a more erudite political and philosophical memoir about growing up during the Vietnam-era would also enjoy Michael Albert’s Remembering Tomorrow: A Memoir which explores his childhood, politics, and involvement in SDS, which The Weather Underground splintered off of, as well as his assessment of the future. Albert’s narrative is a little bit more sober, but would still appeal to readers interested in this time period and moreover, the politics involved, namely anti-capitalism. Readers more interested in discussions of anti-racism and white privilege would enjoy Stokley Carmichael’s memoir, Ready For Revolution that explores the Civil Rights Movement, which is peripheral but important in Fugitive Days . Further, readers who enjoyed the time period and discussions of the Vietnam war and U.S. policy would probably enjoy reading about it through the eyes of someone who was immersed in the reporting for it. John Hess’ My Times: A Memoir of Dissent, is the memoir of a reporter who worked for the New York Times during the Vietnam war.
Red Flags: Profanity, discussions of sexual liberation, drug use, radical politics, violence against the state, anti-capitalism.
