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Local Deities
The capture and trial of members of the American armed resistance form the focal point of a novel exploring the conflicts between a woman's love for her friends and her doubts about their actions
306 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1990
36 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 21, 2024
a written expression of armed love for the underground & united freedom front / ohio 7 revolutionaries ray luc & pat levasseur
(He had written her a letter. Why her? He had written it the day after he saw her standing in the crowd outside the courthouse and blown her a kiss, hard to do with hands chained, but he had managed. He had written to her about love, armed love, love for the people, love for the oppressed. The revolutionary picks up a gun with one hand, reaches out to embrace the people with the other. Armed love is deep and everlasting, he had written. And I will take it to the wall and beyond.)
watch out. be prepared. you are living in the belly of the beast. and all of the contradictions explode. as the must –– but it won't happen without conscious rebellion. between the aboveground and the underground. between the mass movement and the guerrilla. between those who have a life to return to after struggle and those who commit to never selling out never surrendering. between we're not ready for revolution and will we ever be ready? between the courage of a family around a kitchen table and that of a book of poetry and an M-16. between how could you throw away your life and for what ? and when the pigs come you burn the papers you grab your gun you get the hell out of there and when you leave the safehouse , who is waiting for you ?
so many of them, all the other women who have walked through that wall of blood ties and memories before her. The faces rise up in the darkness and they are so beautiful, Black and Native American, Hispanic (all the mothers of the disappeared, the mothers of the plazas, all the brave women of the revolutionary vanguards), and Chinese, Vietnamese, all the women warriors of the African National Congress, they are all there, beyond the door, waiting for her with their arms open in welcome. It is the next step.
instead of asking what are you waiting for to engage to really engage in struggle –– ask : what is waiting for you ? crumbling buildings children crying out from beneath the rubble women falling with dying children in their arms the earth itself drying up cracking men dying of thirst in prisons being dismembered slowly armies moving towns burned forests leveled animals erased from the sea and the face of the earth and guerrillas and their rifles aimed at the sky
the world is waiting
it will be hard for anyone else to understand why you did it and it will be even harder for those close to you to understand why you can't take a plea why you can't proclaim your innocence why you must walk head held high into prison
you will say "I am part of the resistance in this country. I support the armed struggle of the Black Liberation Army and the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional and the August 7th Brigade. I support them for the sake of my own children and all children, all over the world."
they will understand that they will understand love they will understand care and devotion even if they don't understand arms they will understand armed love
US OUT OF NORTH AMERIKA
(He had written her a letter. Why her? He had written it the day after he saw her standing in the crowd outside the courthouse and blown her a kiss, hard to do with hands chained, but he had managed. He had written to her about love, armed love, love for the people, love for the oppressed. The revolutionary picks up a gun with one hand, reaches out to embrace the people with the other. Armed love is deep and everlasting, he had written. And I will take it to the wall and beyond.)
watch out. be prepared. you are living in the belly of the beast. and all of the contradictions explode. as the must –– but it won't happen without conscious rebellion. between the aboveground and the underground. between the mass movement and the guerrilla. between those who have a life to return to after struggle and those who commit to never selling out never surrendering. between we're not ready for revolution and will we ever be ready? between the courage of a family around a kitchen table and that of a book of poetry and an M-16. between how could you throw away your life and for what ? and when the pigs come you burn the papers you grab your gun you get the hell out of there and when you leave the safehouse , who is waiting for you ?
so many of them, all the other women who have walked through that wall of blood ties and memories before her. The faces rise up in the darkness and they are so beautiful, Black and Native American, Hispanic (all the mothers of the disappeared, the mothers of the plazas, all the brave women of the revolutionary vanguards), and Chinese, Vietnamese, all the women warriors of the African National Congress, they are all there, beyond the door, waiting for her with their arms open in welcome. It is the next step.
instead of asking what are you waiting for to engage to really engage in struggle –– ask : what is waiting for you ? crumbling buildings children crying out from beneath the rubble women falling with dying children in their arms the earth itself drying up cracking men dying of thirst in prisons being dismembered slowly armies moving towns burned forests leveled animals erased from the sea and the face of the earth and guerrillas and their rifles aimed at the sky
the world is waiting
it will be hard for anyone else to understand why you did it and it will be even harder for those close to you to understand why you can't take a plea why you can't proclaim your innocence why you must walk head held high into prison
you will say "I am part of the resistance in this country. I support the armed struggle of the Black Liberation Army and the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional and the August 7th Brigade. I support them for the sake of my own children and all children, all over the world."
they will understand that they will understand love they will understand care and devotion even if they don't understand arms they will understand armed love
US OUT OF NORTH AMERIKA
August 21, 2025
An incredibly moving portrait of how an entire community is impacted by state repression & the decision to go underground, both in ways that drive people apart & that bring them together. It offers interesting reflections on how children are impacted by struggle, which should be in conversation with the Mother Country Radicals podcast. I haven't read much from the 80s either, so it was simultaneously inspiring & jarring to see the centrality of Nicaragua & the Sandinista revolution (much Palestine today or Vietnam in the 60s & 70s) to US-based movements in the 80s.
This book reminded me a bit of Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa, in that the character whose interiority is explored is primarily, though not solely, a part of an above ground network.
This book reminded me a bit of Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa, in that the character whose interiority is explored is primarily, though not solely, a part of an above ground network.
May 11, 2025
"There are stories people tell themselves so they can remember who they are. The stories are so real that the day seems to fade back, the stories move in closer, as though they had more strength, as though real life was lived inside the stories, as though the present were merely a long daydream, like treading water, treading time."
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews