Can You See the Wind?
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A story of family--whether the one you inherit or the one you create--bound together and torn apart in the struggle for a better world.
Change rarely comes easily or without a fight. In her much-anticipated fourth novel Beverly Gologorsky takes a close, loving look at the members of a working-class family in the Bronx, each in their own way struggling for a better world. At the heart of the story is Josie, a young woman whose fraught relationship with her family is further stretched by her commitment to anti-Vietnam War activities and her deepening relationship with a rising star in the Black Panther Party. Her brother Johnny is a police officer, rough and judgmental. Closest in age to Josie is sweet Richie, who, inexplicably to her, has just become an enlisted soldier. Her sister Celia is pulled toward activism in the women's fight for equality, but paralyzed by fear for her eldest son who may or may not have blown up an enlistment center. Their lives intertwine through acts of violence, loyalty, and, above all, the bonds of family love and loss. One thing is certain--that in the long run of life, change is inevitable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Gologorsky's admirable if overstuffed latest (after Every Body Has a Story) the author sticks with familiar themes: family relationships and the travails of the working class amid larger events. In 1967, Celia is raising a passel of children in the Bronx as her rocker husband's star begins to fade. Her younger sister, Josie, determines to leave her Bronx home and find purpose in stopping the Vietnam War, and their brother Richie enlists in the army to see the world. The main story lines revolve around Josie and the boyfriend she meets at a protest in Washington, D.C., who gets involved with the Black Panther movement, and Celia's fractured relationship with her oldest son, Miles, who joins a violent underground antiwar group. Richie's eye-opening letters home, meanwhile, paint a devastating picture of combat in Vietnam. The author's prose sings, but her agenda to explore the political vagaries of the time undermines the character development. Readers will nevertheless appreciate this apt depiction from the front lines of a difficult time in the nation's history.
