Dance the Eagle to Sleep

By Marge Piercy

Book Overview

Originally published in 1970, Marge Piercy's second novel follows the lives of four teenagers, in a near-future society, as they rebel against a military draft and "the system." The occupation of Franklin High School begins, and with it, the open rebellion of America's youth against their channeled, unrewarding lives and the self-serving, plastic society that directs them.

From the disillusionment and alienation of the young at the center of the revolt, to their attempts to build a visionary new society, the nationwide following they gain and the brutally complete repression that inevitably follows, this is a future fiction without a drop of fantasy. As driving, violent, and nuanced today as it was 40 years ago, this anniversary edition includes a new introduction by the author reflecting unapologetically on the novel and the times from which it emerged.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1604864567
• ISBN13: 9781604864564
• Release Date: December 2011
• Publisher: PM Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

An important historical document, a good but flawed vision

Marge's first novel. This is an important historical document. It is really in novel form, with the grace, strength, vigor and torque of Marge Piercy's particular view, this is a distillation of what the SDS RYM faction thought a revolutionary change in America would be like, written close to the moment. It has excitment, vigor of both a moral and a page turning type, and it reads like science fantasy today even though at the time it was conceived thousands of people probably thought it was political realism. While at the time I would have said what I say now, that real change wont happen until the great batallions of working and farming people in this country move into action, the dream, the justice sought, and the excitement here is 100 times more important than what turned out to be fanciful. If in those days people had these fanciful dreams, with wars, near depression conditions, rising crises in health, homelessness, and the collapse even of bourgeois educationa nd social servidces for working people only beginning, the young Marge Piercy's cherished ream of a better world and faith somehow it could be fought for and won are worth a 1000 cynical, self-centered, neurotic tales that ignore the immorality and crime of this system and the need to tear it down.