Something Red

It is 1979. The Cold War is waning, the age of protest has come and gone, and in the midst of this shifting political landscape, the once-radical Goldstein family of Washington, D.C. is facing its own challenges. Dennis, whose government job often takes him to Moscow, struggles both to succeed in a career he doesn't quite believe in and to live up to his father's leftist legacy. Sharon, a caterer for the Washington elite, joins a cultlike group in search of the fulfillment she once felt. Happy-go-lucky Benjamin is heading off to college, there to experience an awakening of social conscience, and sixteen-year-old Vanessa, in the throes of a rocky adolescence, finds solace in D.C.'s burgeoning hardcore music scene. As each of them follows separate trajectories of personal protest and compromise along the edge of a new decade, radical impulses and traditions long dormant in their family awaken once again, with shocking, far-reaching results. At once a poignant story of husbands and wives, parents and children, activists and spies,Something Redis a masterful novel that unfurls with suspense, humor, and insight.