Graydon Carter
A Model Middle-American
I finished reading Tom Hayden’s Reunion: A Memoir, the day Abbie Hoffman was found dead at the age of 52 in his Pennsylvania apartment, an apparent suicide. Reunion, which was completed prior to the break-up of Hayden’s 16-year marriage to the aerobics entrepreneur and sometime actress Jane Fonda, has a sort of happy ending – the title refers to Hayden’s reconciliation with his father following a decade and a half of alienation. Hoffman’s end was evidently not so happy. It is a difficult metamorphosis, this one from celebrated young firebrand to middle-aged, sociological footnote. Change, settle down, or make any attempt at milking your arc of fame in the pursuit of another career, and you are branded a pathetic loser, a sell-out. Stay the same, and like Hoffman you become a grizzled embarrassing fossil with an entourage of fringe loners and assorted nuts.
No, a quiet, graceful subtlety is what is called for here. You’ve got to age, grow less rebellious, but still somehow stay vital without letting anyone notice the changes along the way. Hayden recalls once telling Norman Thomas ‘that too many American radicals end up honored but irrelevant’. Hayden has
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger
'The eight years he has spent in solitary confinement have had a devastating impact on his mental health ... human rights organisations believe his detention is punishment for his critical views.'
@lucyjpop on the Egyptian activist and poet Ahmed Douma.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/ahmed-douma