WITH THE WEATHERMEN: The Personal Journal of a Revolutionary Woman

by Susan Stem ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 27, 1975

Susan Stem ran with the Weathermen before they went underground, like some adolescent gifts run with motorcycle packs or street gangs. Politics had very little to do with it; the ""tough, virile SDS men"" had a lot to do with it. It was the superstars, the heavies of the Movement she was attracted to, and Susan was wounded when Mark Rudd didn't even give her a tumble, and Bernardine Dohrn (""my meeting her, as casual as it was, thrilled me"") and Kathy Boudin ignored her. Susan was a member of SDS in Seattle and participated in the '68 Convention in Chicago and the Days of Rage during which she beat up on the ""pigs"" with metal pipes, wildly exhilarated all the while. When not rioting or attending self-criticism sessions at the Collective where she lived, Susan supported herself as a topless dancer, took cocaine, LSD, marijuana, uppers and downers, shoplifted from fancy stores. The Weathermen eventually expelled her in part because she was not into ""smashing monogamy."" But Susan, who eventually went to jail both for her protest activities and for forging checks, loves them still. She understood that she was not worthy of being a Weatherman and castigated herself for ""my inability to change to grow strong enough to be really with the revolutionary rhetoric."" Her book, mostly written in jail, is a pathetic testament from a deeply disturbed poor little rich girl whose confusion and self-hatred will make you wince.

Pub Date: June 27, 1975

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975

Categories: NONFICTION