Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left

When Kathy Boudin was arrested in 1981 after a botched armed robbery and shootout that left a Brinks guard and two policemen dead, she ended a decade living underground as part of the radical Weathermen underground; she would spend the next 22 years in Bedford Hills prison. In Family Circle, Boudin's former classmate Susan Braudy vividly re-creates the radicalization of this intelligent, privileged young woman who came from one of the most prominent liberal intellectual families in America. She illuminates Boudin's relationship with her parents --and particularly with her father Leonard, a famous leftist lawyer--and shows how Kathy, swept up in the ferment of the late 1960s, moved further and further from the Old Left ideals they embodied.

Based on extensive interviews, court documents, and Boudin family papers, Family Circle is both a rich biography of a family and a intimate window into a turbulent and fascinating time.

Author: Susan Braudy
Publisher: Anchor Books
Published: 11/09/2004
Pages: 496
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.02lbs
Size: 8.08h x 5.24w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781400077489

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 01/09/2005 pg. 22

About the Author
Susan Braudy was born in Philadelphia and was educated at Bryn Mawr, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale. She has written for many magazines, including the New York Times, Newsweek, and The Atlantic Monthly. She is the author of four previous books, among them This Crazy Thing Called Love. She lives in New York City.