PARTISAN REVIEW
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walked out on him and left him with. The father who taught his son
to be a "psychic alien,'· the mother who had "a profound distaste for
the common man" and who proved to her son that she was "unstable"
because she refused to have illusions.
Daniel, his sister Susan, Linda, the daughter of the friend who
informed on the Isaacsons, Mr. and Mrs. Lewin, the people who adopted
the orphans and who are repayed by Daniel and Susan by "treating
them as poorly as children treat their real parents," all are original and
heartbreaking as they live lives that accommodat!" an event that none
of them was responsible for. As, of course, everybody does, from family
war stories to war war stories, some accommodating better and some
worse than others and some, like Susan, not accommodating at all.
The Isaacsons' death sentence was itself used as an investigative
procedure, but since they would not confess or name names, Daniel
must years later, locked into family truths, try to find out what really
happened and what his parents really meant by dying that way before
he can begin to live his corrupted life. This book is a search that shows
us richly many varieties of radical thought from the thirties until the
time the bo:::>k takes place (1967).
It
makes it seem easier to be a radical
today and as Daniel says after a peace vigil in the Capitol, "Washington
was our town, I played Washington when I was a kid."
At one point Daniel says, "And all my life I have been trying to
escape from my relatives and I have been intricate in my run, but one
way or another they are what you come upon around the corner, and
the Lord God who is so frantic for recognition says you have to ask
how they are and would they like something cool to drink, and what
is it you can do for them this time." Take that Dr. Waters.
Jane Richmond
ST. MARKS CHURCH IN-THE-BOUWERY
POETRY PROJECT
READINGS: Wednesdays at 8:30 P.M.
Located at Tenth Street and Second Avenue
New York, N.Y.
