The Taking of the Waters

Fortified with alcohol, they set off in an old Cadillac convertible on a wild and dangerous quest. Dieter is a rootless German journalist who became so worried about his American friend Clay that he crossed the Atlantic to track him down. Once a hard-charging writer, Clay is now so disaffected that he taunts stray cops from the saddle of his chopped Harley.

Dieter's arrival stirs up the traces of a three-generation saga of the American Left. What was done to Clay's grandmother, the Socialist-Feminist muckraker? To his father, the stormy Communist agitator? To Clay's own New Left hopes for a brighter America?

The answers erupt from their shattering odyssey into the dark side of America.

"The most moving novel to come out of the experience of American radicalism."
- Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz

"A racy ambitious edit of recent history. It's a formidably good idea to use a young German hipster, raised on American rock and Hollywood films, to go on - the-road to view the wreckage of the U.S. Left. The scope of a good road movie and the depth of a Gramsci text, without the dullness."
- Clancy Sigal, author of Going Away


Genre: Historical