Red Star Sister : Between Madness and Utopia

by Leslie Brody

A memoir of the author's coming-of-age in the radical counterculture of the late sixties and early seventies

Genres: Travel

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1998

About the author

Born in the Bronx, New York, Leslie Brody left home at the age of 17 to become an underground press reporter for the Berkeley Tribe. A year later, she set off to travel around Europe. From 1971-1976, Brody lived in London and Amsterdam, sampling various hippie occupations. She returned to California in the late 70s and worked as a librarian both at the San Francisco College of Mortuary Science, and for the Sierra Club, while attending college at San Francisco State University. Leslie Brody has won the PEN Center USA West prize and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and several awards for her playwriting. She is the author of the memoir Red Star Sister and the story collection A Motel of the Mind and teaches full time at the Creative Writing Department of the University of Redlands. She lives in Redlands, California.

Reviews

[PEN Center USA · Rating 5 out of 5]

1999 PEN Center USA Award Winner for Creative Nonfiction.

[Ronald J Schulz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this. Leslie lived part of her adventure with me in our White Panther collective on LaSalle in Chicago. So glad to read her take on some of our experiences in those heady days. I only wish she remembered more of our names. It's okay, the statute of limitations is long past for some of our hijinks! I'm writing my own version of those events in a forthcoming book. Meanwhile, seeking an agent.

[Wiski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leslie Brody was a dear professor of mine in college. A great teacher...and a terrific writer! Red Star Sister made the 60s come to life for me.

[Ronald Schulz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book as a great account of her participation in the social upheaval of the revolutionary anti-war, anti-racism, Women's Rights, and Gay Liberation movements that we became a part of in 1970. Leslie lived part of her adventure with me and our comrades in our White Panther Party collective on La Salle Street in Chicago before she went to the Ann Arbor headquarters. After she published this book I reconnected with her and told her I was writing my own memoir of these events, which are currently awaiting publication by Tumbleweed Books. Leslie and I had different perspectives on the events of those explosive times as must be expected. We were all young and brimming with the righteous fervor of our ideals. After reading both books, I hope the reader will gain balanced insight into the conflict of those times and carry that exuberant spirit into the future to struggle against corruption and oppression. Our motto was "Seize the time; the time is now." It was true then and remains true now.