Volume 25, Number 5 · April 6, 1978
Some Romance!
By Irving Howe
The Romance of American Communism
by Vivian Gornick
Basic Books, 265 pp., $10.00
A good subject with large possibilities—what more can a writer ask for? Vivian Gornick has found such a subject in turning back to the experience of those thousands of Americans who passed through the Communist Party. She interviews a number of old-timers, taking down their words with syntactical improvements, and she frames these recollections with her own commentaries. Her purpose is to recall the humanity of the Communist experience, that is, to show that while some were or became scoundrels, others were decent, selfless people who found themselves trapped by their idealism.
Review, 1840 words
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