This novel portrays vivid insights into the lives of individuals caught up in the various issues and events during the later years of the Sixties. The earlier years of the decade of brewing unrest are treated through flashbacks or memory comments that clarify current activity. The late Sixties contained the mounting pressures. Characters represent a wide range of perspectives--parental confusion and/or support, tten independence, protesters of injustice, defenders of the status quo, impatience with the status quo, evaders of issues, workers for justice, Vietnam as necessary or evil.
The turmoil and complexity of the sixties are well known, but the issues are generally treated independently to provide a depth of understanding. This novel provides avenues for seeing all the issues in related contexts to help sharpen overall perceptions of the period. How could such a range of conflicting problems and issues coalesce and demand solution at the same time? To wit: racial discrimination, intervention in Vietnam, drug use, gender inequities, university roles, and changing mores. However it happened, individuals needed to respond.
Are we better off for the travail of the Sixties? Would positive changes have occurred without such a conflicting time? Read and wonder.
