Fugitive Days

From Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
From an early age, Bill Ayers's desire to belong had gotten him into hot water. In the first few pages of his riveting memoir, he describes finding himself, literally, on fire, the target of a poorly built pipe bomb lobbed by a teenage friend. "A blond in a crowd of brunettes, chubby in a family of beanpoles," Bill had always felt the odd man out. But coming of age in the revolutionary '60s, he quickly learned that people fighting for a cause band together regardless of their perceived differences, and Bill's attention to such causes -- whether the focus was civil rights or his work as a peace activist -- would shape his life for years to come.

Beginning with his childhood in a well-to-do suburb of Chicago, Ayers's vivid narrative traces the fuse of his life. From his years as an underachiever and a college dropout, he lived "in the thick and sticky shadow" of the Bomb. Whether it was the atomic bombs dropped over Japan, those dropped on hamlets in Vietnam, or those he would assemble to bring attention to the issues of his day, Ayers "was born into an orgy of explosions." We learn how, from his first arrest as a protester to his debut on the FBI's Most Wanted List, Ayers somehow remained one step ahead of the explosion, his experiences providing ample fuel for his next project. What Ayers hadn't counted on, though, was the cost of such heroics. Fortunately for him, and for us, he lived to tell this very important story. (Fall 2001 Selection)

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Ayers has a knack for captur ing the spirit of his times: the shallow optimism of the 1950s, the intoxi cating atmos phere of freedom in the mid-'60s, the sense after the mayhem of 1968 that things were rapidly falling apart. . . . What is most interesting to watch, however, is Ayers' slow transformation from starry-eyed idealist to bomb-throwing fugitive. What started as a bighearted but politically vague sympathy for the poor and oppressed metamorphosed into a fierce and all-consuming antagonism toward the government fighting the war in Vietnam. In a matter of two or three years, the gentle soul who had taught school in community cooperatives was fighting street battles with the Chicago police, and not much later was planting explosives in bathrooms at the Pentagon."

Library Journal

"Memory is a motherf***er," writes Ayers (A Kind and Just Parent). In the 1970s, he was a head of the radical Weathermen and one of America's Ten Most Wanted, along with his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, but he is now a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. His memoir is a breath of fresh air in this self-absorbed age. Ayers discusses his reservations about the use of violence to achieve an end to violence (reservations he held then as well), but he is unrepentant in believing that America was the aggressor against North Vietnam and that right-minded people have an obligation to resist unjust wars. The book is uneven in tone, alternating fluffy passages about the passage of time with straightforward narration of Ayers's more than ten years on the lam. The sentiments expressed in the book still seem noble, however, regardless of one's opinions of the means used by Ayers's comrades. There are many lessons still to be learned from such narratives. Recommended. David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An overblown yet oddly sketchy memoir recalling Ayers's days in the Weather Underground. A spin-off of the leftist, antiwar group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Weather Underground was formed in the late 1960s by a few hundred militant college students who became notorious as bombers after blowing up a policeman's statue in Chicago and a bathroom in the Pentagon. They also induced violent riots and masterminded Timothy Leary's prison escape. Members rationalized their terrorism in revolutionary terms. As Ayers tells it, "I was a full-time peace activist . . . our future existence hung in the balance. It fell to us-and we were just kids-to save the world." Ayers captivates with heartfelt recollections of his friends in the Black Panthers, feminist groups, and Vietnam, attesting to his sincere wish to create a better world. Unfortunately, his passion cripples his credibility; he spends more time divulging emotions than describing his participation in terrorist acts, leaving us to wonder what actions he took and how effective they were. Much of this riveting American history is conveyed in rambling exposition that at its best moments has a Kerouac-like looseness, but more frequently denies significant characters and events the depth they deserve. Ayers's memories are selective to the point of incomprehensibility. He goes on and on about his affair with "Diana," later killed during an accidental explosion in a Weather Underground bomb factory, without bothering to mention her last name. (It was Oughton.) When he first meets SDS leader Bernadine Dohrn, she's got a boyfriend Ayers finds intimidating; the next thing we know Bill and Bernadine are living together, with no explanation of where the boyfriend went. Although his fast-paced chronicle is at times explosive, Ayers too often rushes past intimate details and simply lists events rather than reenacting them in real time. Younger readers who weren't around during the Vietnam protest era will still feel like they're missing something.