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Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left
When Kathy Boudin was arrested in 1981 after a botched armed robbery and shootout that left a Brinks guard and two policemen dead, she ended a decade living underground as part of the radical Weathermen underground; she would spend the next 22 years in Bedford Hills prison. In Family Circle , Boudin’s former classmate Susan Braudy vividly re-creates the radicalization of this intelligent, privileged young woman who came from one of the most prominent liberal intellectual families in America. She illuminates Boudin’s relationship with her parents --and particularly with her father Leonard, a famous leftist lawyer--and shows how Kathy, swept up in the ferment of the late 1960s, moved further and further from the Old Left ideals they embodied.
Based on extensive interviews, court documents, and Boudin family papers, Family Circle is both a rich biography of a family and a intimate window into a turbulent and fascinating time.
Based on extensive interviews, court documents, and Boudin family papers, Family Circle is both a rich biography of a family and a intimate window into a turbulent and fascinating time.
496 pages, Paperback
First published October 14, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 20, 2022
In her book, Susan Braudy attempts to record the story of Kathy Boudin, a member of the Weather Underground. This attempt could have been successful, as Braudy knew Kathy Boudin personally and had insight into her character, but she focuses too much on making the reader sympathize with her student radical friend. In my case, her efforts were fruitless and even intensified my dislike for Boudin.
The author met Kathy in Bryn Mawr College in 1961, when she was a junior and Kathy was a freshman. Kathy fascinated her at first sight with her already fully formed and condescending adult views on politics and power. It was Kathy who introduced her to people who evoked the student activists' admiration, such as journalist and government critic Izzy Stone, who had achieved fame in the 1950s for fighting for the rights of those accused of having been members of the American Communist Party, Michael Meeropol, the son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, whom Kathy was dating, and Norman Thomas, the former Socialist Party candidate for president, who have narrowly prevailed over President John F. Kennedy in a mock presidential election in Kathy's high school.
To Susan, Kathy Boudin was apparently everything that she wanted to be, but did not have the courage to become. Although they did not keep in touch after 1968, she continued to follow her life through stories of mutual acquaintances and newspapers. She cried when she learned that Kathy had fled the Greenwich townhouse naked after the explosion in which Diana Oughton, Susan's neighbor at Bryn Mawr, and Cathlyn Wilkerson, the girlfriend of Susan's brother, perished. She was also stunned to read about her arrest for robbery and murder in 1981.
I understand that to the author, Kathy must have meant a lot, but this does not excuse her constant attempts to endear her to the reader. It is disturbing that she has so much sympathy for someone who committed murder and does not spare any for the three victims – two policemen and one security guard – whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time and trying to stop a group of student radicals from doing something stupid and unnecessary. I do not understand why she believes that the reader will like Boudin after learning her story, which is that of a typical delusional young radical.
I personally feel no sympathy for her and the other Weathermen. They were large scale vandals and small scale terrorists, who considered themselves the saviors of America from the Establishment. Drunk on the idea of their own significance, they quickly forgot that their mission and that of their bigger predecessor, Students for a Democratic Society, was to help alert the government to the fact that it should work to put an end to racial discrimination and the Vietnam conflict. Their activism degraded into chaotic urban insurgency that proved to be counter-productive because it was disorganized and aimed at the wrong targets. For instance, operations such as the attack on the Harvard Center of International Affairs, in the course of which the personnel was beaten, and bombings of police precincts were foolish and led to the alienation of the American public, who did not understand and like the random violence that the Weather Underground embraced as its strategy.
The attempted robbery of an armored truck for which Kathy Boudin was arrested was a similarly irrational action that was designed to attract attention to what remained of the Weather Underground and to prove something – what precisely is not clear – to the American government. In the process, three innocent people were murdered, and this conveniently played into the hands of those whom the radicals were trying to oppose. It provoked the outrage of the public, which sympathized with the families of the victims, and it gave the opponents of the protest movement more reasons to disparage all activists for social change as aimless rebels with terrorist tendencies.
This is why I found the author's attempts to portray Boudin as a better person than she was and find an excuse for her actions frustrating. As much as Braudy wants the reader to believe so, her explanation that Boudin engaged in reckless behavior throughout her life because she had to compete for her father's attention does not move the blame fro what she did off her and onto her father. Upon learning what the author was planning to write about her, Boudin herself informed Susan through her lawyer, Victor Rabinowitz, that she was not interested in supporting a work that cast her father in a negative light.
FAMILY CIRCLE is an account of Kathy Boudin's life that reflects Braudy's perception of her, not who she really was. This book should be treated as a novel about a student radical more than as a biography.
The author met Kathy in Bryn Mawr College in 1961, when she was a junior and Kathy was a freshman. Kathy fascinated her at first sight with her already fully formed and condescending adult views on politics and power. It was Kathy who introduced her to people who evoked the student activists' admiration, such as journalist and government critic Izzy Stone, who had achieved fame in the 1950s for fighting for the rights of those accused of having been members of the American Communist Party, Michael Meeropol, the son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, whom Kathy was dating, and Norman Thomas, the former Socialist Party candidate for president, who have narrowly prevailed over President John F. Kennedy in a mock presidential election in Kathy's high school.
To Susan, Kathy Boudin was apparently everything that she wanted to be, but did not have the courage to become. Although they did not keep in touch after 1968, she continued to follow her life through stories of mutual acquaintances and newspapers. She cried when she learned that Kathy had fled the Greenwich townhouse naked after the explosion in which Diana Oughton, Susan's neighbor at Bryn Mawr, and Cathlyn Wilkerson, the girlfriend of Susan's brother, perished. She was also stunned to read about her arrest for robbery and murder in 1981.
I understand that to the author, Kathy must have meant a lot, but this does not excuse her constant attempts to endear her to the reader. It is disturbing that she has so much sympathy for someone who committed murder and does not spare any for the three victims – two policemen and one security guard – whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time and trying to stop a group of student radicals from doing something stupid and unnecessary. I do not understand why she believes that the reader will like Boudin after learning her story, which is that of a typical delusional young radical.
I personally feel no sympathy for her and the other Weathermen. They were large scale vandals and small scale terrorists, who considered themselves the saviors of America from the Establishment. Drunk on the idea of their own significance, they quickly forgot that their mission and that of their bigger predecessor, Students for a Democratic Society, was to help alert the government to the fact that it should work to put an end to racial discrimination and the Vietnam conflict. Their activism degraded into chaotic urban insurgency that proved to be counter-productive because it was disorganized and aimed at the wrong targets. For instance, operations such as the attack on the Harvard Center of International Affairs, in the course of which the personnel was beaten, and bombings of police precincts were foolish and led to the alienation of the American public, who did not understand and like the random violence that the Weather Underground embraced as its strategy.
The attempted robbery of an armored truck for which Kathy Boudin was arrested was a similarly irrational action that was designed to attract attention to what remained of the Weather Underground and to prove something – what precisely is not clear – to the American government. In the process, three innocent people were murdered, and this conveniently played into the hands of those whom the radicals were trying to oppose. It provoked the outrage of the public, which sympathized with the families of the victims, and it gave the opponents of the protest movement more reasons to disparage all activists for social change as aimless rebels with terrorist tendencies.
This is why I found the author's attempts to portray Boudin as a better person than she was and find an excuse for her actions frustrating. As much as Braudy wants the reader to believe so, her explanation that Boudin engaged in reckless behavior throughout her life because she had to compete for her father's attention does not move the blame fro what she did off her and onto her father. Upon learning what the author was planning to write about her, Boudin herself informed Susan through her lawyer, Victor Rabinowitz, that she was not interested in supporting a work that cast her father in a negative light.
FAMILY CIRCLE is an account of Kathy Boudin's life that reflects Braudy's perception of her, not who she really was. This book should be treated as a novel about a student radical more than as a biography.
March 3, 2009
After Boudin was arrested in Nyack for her participation in the Brinks robbery in 1981, she was shuttled back and forth from Rockland County Jail to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Manhattan and finally to Orange County Jail in good old Goshen, N.Y. Back then my father was working for the County Attorney and one of his responsibilities was to monitor the conditions of OCJ's most famous prisoners (I learned from Braundy that this was probably due to Leonard Boudin's myriad pre-trial motions).
In any event, one day he was walking through OCJ asking after the prisoners when a certain Kathy Boudin called out to a comrade, "Don't talk to him! He's a pig agent of the state!" In riposte, and in perhaps his finest moment, Dad shouts back, "Hey now, I'm a pig agent for the county."
As for the book? Not bad.
In any event, one day he was walking through OCJ asking after the prisoners when a certain Kathy Boudin called out to a comrade, "Don't talk to him! He's a pig agent of the state!" In riposte, and in perhaps his finest moment, Dad shouts back, "Hey now, I'm a pig agent for the county."
As for the book? Not bad.
June 11, 2009
I started out thinking that this book was written by the Kitty Kelly for left wingers. It seemed that the author did not express the political philosophy behing Kathy and Leonard's actions, focusing instead on personal data of questionable verity. But toward the end of the book, during Kathy's prison years I felt that I could understand her life experiences more fully. I still don't claim to understand how society's most intelligent and privileged young people who performed altruistic acts of public service morphed into a criminally insane group of bank robbers. But it made for a fascinating read.
January 4, 2014
Excellent book. While I was reading "American Pastoral" by Philip Roth, a fictionalized version of a daughter from a well-off family who becomes a radical bomber, I came across this book, the true story of Kathy Boudin, and its review in the WSJ. I took this book out of the library and couldn't put it down. The author is a wonderful writer. It brought back memories of the Vietnam War and the protests, including unfortunately the bombings and robberies that were done in the name of "peace." I remember being either in high school or college when a police officer with nine children was shot in the back as he was responding to a bank robbery in the Brighton section of Boston. Although the robbery in Brighton did not involve Kathy Boudin (the robbery for which she was apprehended finally was a Brinks robbery in New York or New Jersey), it was eerily similar. Now, I need to go back to the Philip Roth book and finish it.
July 25, 2008
Compelling. A fascinating look at a family caught up in liberation politics.
August 6, 2022
Susan Braudy, a former classmate of Kathy Boudin goes into great detail to tell not only Kathy Boudin's life as part of the radical group the Weathermen (Weather Underground), but also about her liberal family, and her leftist father.
Includes information based on extensive research, interviews, court documents, and family photos are included.
Kathy Boudin is the mother of Chesa Boudin the San Francisco District Attorney who was raised by Bill Ayers.
Includes information based on extensive research, interviews, court documents, and family photos are included.
Kathy Boudin is the mother of Chesa Boudin the San Francisco District Attorney who was raised by Bill Ayers.
January 28, 2024
Excellent history to know! Not many do. The writing was ok, personal. Worth the time just to know history without the news.
February 28, 2011
This is a book worth reading if you ever wondered "What were they thinking?" when the 60's turned to violence. I found it difficult to have much sympathy for Kathy Boudin but I did come away with a bit more understanding of how people with good intentions and laudable goals can drift into violence.
I found Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen by Mark Rudd to be a more believable and detailed book about the era.
I found Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen by Mark Rudd to be a more believable and detailed book about the era.
August 1, 2008
The insulting title provides a clue to the author's point of view. The Left has a long history of fighting against inherited aristocracy. As a person of the Left, I certainly do not consider the Boudin family as aristocrats. Contributors, valued comrades, but not even leaders.
Braudy distorts history as I have learned it, uses adjectives to belittle weather people and the 60's new left, and widely engages in pseudo-pychoanalysis.
In spite of the author's bias, and that I do not think she is a good writer, she has a fascinating story to tell.
Braudy distorts history as I have learned it, uses adjectives to belittle weather people and the 60's new left, and widely engages in pseudo-pychoanalysis.
In spite of the author's bias, and that I do not think she is a good writer, she has a fascinating story to tell.
April 6, 2007
People on the left have money too and this is what they do with it. Fascinating story about what may have destroyed power of the democratic party.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews