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America's Child

America's Child

A Woman's Journey Through the Radical Sixties

by Susan Sherman

Imprint: Curbstone Books

280 Pages, 5.50 x 8.50 in

Paperback
9781931896351
Published: October 2007

$17.95

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Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

America's Child is the story of the journey of a child of first-generation immigrant parents from a working-class neighborhood in Philadelphia to the mythic avenues of 1940s Hollywood, through the transformative years of Berkeley, to the avant-garde art world of New York, to a Cuban movie theater filled with Vietnamese students and the turbulence of the sixties.

Susan Sherman's journey, during a period in which the world was in ferment and large sections of the population were engaged in active self-examination and agitating for social change, is one of discovery and introspection.

From the cultural renaissance of the late 1950s, through the sexual revolution, to political activism that starts with world issues and ends with struggles around sexism and homophobia, America's Child is simultaneously cultural history, social discourse, and a deeply personal narrative.

BERKELEY 1958-1961
    2478 Telegraph Ave
    Bloodletting
    The Muscian & the Poet
    HUAC
    Love & Other Crises
    Barry & Marie
    Fantasy & Morning Glory Seeds
    Letting Go

LOS ANGELES, 1961
Sometime in the Forties
    Home
    Glamour
    A History Lesson

NEW YORK, 1961-1967
The Early Years
   "On the Road"
   The Deux Megots
   "Coming Out"
     The Poets
     The Hardware Poets Playhouse
   Kelli's Castle
     The Death of a Friend
     A Riot, a Magazine, a "Marriage"
     The Dialectics of Liberation
     Time

CUBA AND AFTER, 1968-1971
The Movement & Other Revelations
   "Mexico Salio a Cuba"
     Cuba: The Cultural Congress of Havana
     Re-entry
   Home Again
   Community
   The Doctor & Fidel
   Cuba: The Countryside, The People
   The Struggle Escalates
   The 5th Street Women's Building

HOME:
New York City, 2006
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Acknowledgments

Poet, playwright, and founding editor of IKON magazine, Susan Sherman has published seven collections of poetry, a translation (Shango de Ima, Doubleday), and The Color of the Heart (Curbstone Press). America's Child was completed thanks to the help of a NYFA fellowship in Creative Nonfiction Literature, a Puffin Foundation Grant, and a residency at Blue Mountain Center.

"America's Child is not only a chronicle of the sixties, it's a book of interior and exterior voyages, a book of transformations, a courageous, honest and illuminating book." —Claribel Alegría

"So much of this book touches on the events of my own life. The friends we made protesting that war—'Angry Arts', The Deux Megots poets' cafe—might be with us still, the portraits are so vivid. This chronicle reads like an adventure story told with modesty and feeling." —Grace Paley

"A poet, a lesbian, a radical, Susan Sherman's life was shaped by the great sweep of change that was the 60s. In America's Child, in beautifully crafted language, she connects us all to her struggle to find her place in a chaotic decade. Her memoir is a moving, sensitive, and insightful look at both a remarkable time and a woman growing into wisdom." —Carol Polcovar