This is the second book published by the Concord Free Press, a non-profit publisher that’s trying to spur charitable giving by publishing free books. Their deal is: they will send you a book completely free if you agree to a) give money to a charity or simply someone who needs it, and b) pass the book on to someone else so they can give. Their first book was Give and Take by Stona Fitch. If this publishing model intrigues you, stay tuned for another post on how you can get this copy.
Push Comes to Shove starts in New York as the 1960s come to an end. Muriel is a black radical who has joined up with a group called Push Comes to Shove after years in the south agitating for racial equality there. Push Comes to Shove isn’t as militant as the Black Panthers though. They demonstrate some, physically attack a slumlord or two, and the one real action they take is to damage a school built without windows. Then someone bombs a police station and Push Comes to Shove is blamed. The police raid the group’s house, killing Muriel’s boyfriend Walter Armstead as he lay in bed.
Afterward, Muriel becomes a reporter for a leftist newspaper. On probation, she can’t really participate herself, but she interviews militants and becomes somewhat their public voice. As another character tells her, when things scare her, she moves toward the danger. She meets and marries Raymond, who plays it safe. The rest of the story is really the story of their differing methods and their relationship. They don’t exactly mesh well together.
It’s not just about Muriel and Raymond of course. But it’s not really all about black radicals and their struggle for justice. Most of the characters are former Viet Nam veterans, and some were radical leftists. Each of them has to come to terms with the 1960s in their own way. None remain activists. The most involved are Muriel as a leftist reporter and Naomi who puts her legal expertise to use in developing countries. The rest try to find themselves by essentially dropping out: joining communes, living above the ground in redwoods, refusing to talk for two years, etc. None of the things they do really surprise me.
However, the conversations the characters have really confuse me. They sound like the conversations literary critics would have, not activists. But then, I don’t know much about how people talked except brief excerpts in news footage of the time. They talk in layers of meaning. Here’s a minor example from fairly early:
From what you wrote in Out in Left Field, they just wanted to be done with their lives.
That’s the way it seemed.
Then accept it and ask yourself why you are spending so much energy on folks who are beyond your reach.
What do you mean?
Do you want this child?(Muriel is pregnant.)
Of course I do!
Then start treating yourself like you want to be in this world enough to want this child in it too!
Wait! Huh? How was discussion about Muriel’s choices on who she interviews really a discussion about whether she thinks the world is worth something? Other discussions are much more multi-layered. People write that way but did they ever talk that way?
The biggest problem I had with the book isn’t so much a problem with the book than it is with me: I was born in 1970. I didn’t even participate in the 1960s much less live as an activist. Activism of the radical sort and war didn’t take any toll on me. Push Comes to Shove assumes some of that shared experience rather than working to get the reader into a sympathetic state. Without my own experience, this was an interesting relationship story but not super-engrossing. Your mileage may vary.
One other blogged review:
Title: Push Comes to Shove
Author: Wesley Brown
Imprint / publisher: Concord Free Press
Format: Paperback
Length: 246 p.
Publication date: May 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0-9817824-1-6
