Radical Passions: A Memoir of Revolution and Healing

If you want to read a different, truly inside book about the 60s, this is it. Kendall Hale, swept up by the political radicalism and revolutionary currents of the decade, takes us through the familiar touchstones of her generation-- the assassinations, Chicago 68, Kent State. But the book covers fresh ground and takes off as she tries to make sense of her political drives while sorting through the changes of the 70s, 80s and beyond. Not just the political changes, but also the universals of growing up and getting old, all experienced through the powerful prism of values that shaped her back in the day. This biography is unusually rich because Ms. Hale keeps hurling herself into and against the world. Her obsessions aren't conventional or narrowly personal. She takes a lot of risks, testing the world, and betting with her life, which is the essence of living passionately. And while she flirts with a doctrinaire mindset in the 70s, she never falls into the robotics that afflicted many on the sectarian left. Likewise, when Ms. Hale begins to explore New Age scenes of the 80s and 90s, she does so with bemused good faith, not blind faith. Her funny bones gets stronger as her experience of excess, in many diverse forms, gets deeper.

Kendall Hale writes her memoir with honesty and undiminished passion, indeed well named. She carries us along like good friends, invited wholeheartedly to share her insights and hard-won wisdom from a life fully lived. Her detail of recollection brings the smallest moment to life so that we enter hand-in-hand, sharing joys, fears, losses, triumphs, hopes. Today's world needs this book, this vibrant record of a generation that questioned, challenged the dominant beliefs of those in power. Kendall's breadth of experience is full of history left out of the usual history books. She offers a one-of-a-kind slice of life in the United States from several layers beneath the surface sheen. She reminds all of us what it takes to pursue a vision that begins with the heart. "Radical Passions" is a gift for the generations to come and all who shared this time in our country's past.

Kendall Hale has written a remarkably candid book about the evolution of her radical passion over nearly 40 years. As a contemporary it rang completely true to my own experience and evolution. There is not a false note. Bottom line: she tells a good story and writes engagingly. It is must reading for anyone who wants to develop an understanding of how many 60's radicals have remained activists infusing their work with spiritual depth. Hale is continuously learning how to channel her passion to create a more just world and how to do it as woman. She grabs out interest by relating her personal struggles as a woman that is both riveting as the story of the challenges of one person and illuminating as social history. Without hammering us, she is able to communicate that the personal is political. She writes about intimate personal challenges and gives us the social and political context, an excellent balance. Above all this is a book written with humility. She does not glamorize her life or pretend that she has answers for us. She is one human being conveying to us her very human experience in a way that we can relate to and help us think about our own lives. A reflective book that models for each of us a way to think about our own lives as we move through life's stages.

Radical Passions is a good read for anyone interested in a socialist's and feminist's view of her life, and its connection with the broad movements of hers and our times. Kendall Hale is a long-time friend and sister in some of these same struggles. Kendall's book is a courageous effort to put pen to paper and reconstruct painful and sometimes hopeful memories of political and personal failures and successes. I especially appreciated the section on the Quincy Shipyard and her take on her attempt to bring women into often dangerous, unprotected work and one dominated by men not eager to have them there. It also covered the strengths and weaknesses of the union during a long strike. Read it and find the parts that resonate with you.

I connected with Hale's path to and through the 1960s college left and counterculture. So much came to life. We always heard about the student worker alliance, but Hale shows us what it was really like. Unlike must autobiographies which skirt or allude, Hale opens up on her sexuality and marriage. Very insightful for those seeking an inside view of people in the movement.