Vida

By Marge Piercy

Book Overview

Originally published in 1979, Vida is Marge Piercy's classic bookend to the '60s. Vida is full of the pleasures and pains, the experiments, disasters, and victories of an extraordinary band of people. At the center of the novel stands Vida Asch. She has lived underground for almost a decade. Back in the '60s she was a political star of the exuberant antiwar movement--a red-haired beauty photographed for the pages of Life magazine--charismatic, passionate, and totally sure she would prevail. Now, a decade later, Vida is on the run, her star-quality replaced by stubborn courage. She comes briefly to rest in a safe house on Cape Cod. To her surprise and annoyance, she finds another person in the house, a fugitive, Joel, ten years younger than she, a kid who dropped into the underground out of the army. As they spend the next days together, Vida finds herself warming toward a man for the first time in years, knowing the dangers all too well.

As counterpoint to the underground '70s, Marge Piercy tells the extraordinary tale of the optimistic '60s, the thousands of people who were members of SAW (Students Against the War) and of the handful who formed a fierce group called the Little Red Wagon. Piercy's characters make vivid and comprehensible the desperation, the courage, and the blind rage of a time when "action" could appear to some to be a more rational choice than the vote.

A new introduction by Marge Piercy situates the book, and the author, in the times from which they emerged.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1604864877
• ISBN13: 9781604864878
• Release Date: December 2011
• Publisher: PM Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A tutorial on radical underground operational security

Ever wonder how those people live, those who choose the radical path in our society? Marge Piercy tells you -- I can think of few better novels that show how those long-ago radicals moved around and communicated, back in the day. A couple of Gerald Seymour's books come close. I strongly recommend this novel highly to anyone studying today's radical fringe, be it al-Qaeda or the Euro-rads. Those people don't pull off major actions very often, because so much of their time and energy is devoted to keeping themselves and their associates secure.

La Vida Loca

Well, the title character isn't crazy, but the pun was too good to pass up. Vida's life, however, is crazy since she's been on the run for "crimes" committed under the cover of radical activism in the 1960s. I was moved by how well-imagined the title character and this book are. One does not consider the things that one would have to do or endure to be underground, even here. Vida can't go to a doctor when she needs one, even for mundane things, because she doesn't have health insurance and would need to provide proof of identity. Vida sleeps with people, men and women, (she can't be picky,) because they're providing her with a place to stay. She can't flee the country because she doesn't have a passport. It's heart-wrenching and deeply felt. Though I don't share the politics that led Vida to her situation, I understand the restless need to *do* *something* in the face of terrible injustice. Vida doesn't get whiney or preachy, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. TK Kenyon Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel

Great reading, the real story, nice for the heart

This is a book I feel ashamed I havent reread in a couple years. Its going into my brief case tommorrow morning to be read furtively at work at lunch, to be devoured again as I have devoured it over and over sinc eI first bought it. I bought this book on a day 21 years ago when I had been turned down for a part time temporary clerical job at a college, a college I now teach at. I didnt know who Marge Piercy was, in fact, I didnt know that if I had called twio or three of my closest friends and comrades they would have told me how I had shared spaces and struggles with Marge, I didnt know I would read in this book about places I had been, or find it modeled after people I had known. I was broke, unemployed with no unemployment, and looked at two books, the other I forget. Vida was cheaper pennies per page.Boy am I lucky. Marge's books have kept me going for years, long before I met her, or learned the good things she's done. This is the innards of what happened in the 1960s, to be sure to people whose politics I don't share, people who in SDS, people who didnt look to the future of the mass struggles but tried individual acts they thought would stimulate the struggle, and then found themselves on the run for decades. However, the human stories, why people resist, why people fight, why people survive, and also how people love both romantically and as comrades in solidarity is shown with candor, realism, and humor.This book is also a page turner. Get this book now while its available at reduced prices for used or remaindered books, pennies for page as I did. When young people, working people, women who want freedom, people who want to stop billionaire sponsored wars rise again and fight, this book will be republished, cherished, understood anew. That time is not going to be long. I am glad I have my Vida to read. Hope you can get 21 years out of uyour copy!