A Saving Remnant

January 15, 2011

Absorbing dual biography of two gay writer-activists who helped shape America's left-wing radical community in the 1960s.

Bancroft Prize–winning historian Duberman (Waiting to Land: A (Mostly) Political Memoir, 1985–2008, 2009 etc.), founder of CUNY's Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, writes with empathy about the personal and political lives of Barbara Deming (1917–84) and McReynolds, 81, longtime friends and allies in the disarmament, civil rights and antiwar movements. Deming, a contributor to Partisan Review and The Nation, grew up apolitical in an upper-middle-class Manhattan family, attended Bennington, read Gandhi and in 1960 plunged into protests on racial equality and other issues, eventually becoming a noted theorist of nonviolence. McReynolds, a decade younger, was a student radical at UCLA in the '50s, a conscientious objector during the Korean War and rose to prominence at Liberation magazine and the War Resisters League, where he served for 45 years. Both wrestled with their homosexuality in the closeted pre-Stonewall years. Deming, battling to "claim my life as my own," shared a complex, unstable love life with artist Mary Meigs and others, and after 1969 became a leading activist on feminist and gay issues. McReynolds, wracked by guilt and regret, often argued about his sexual orientation with his father and finally learned to accept it with the support of dancer friend Alvin Ailey. Drawing on letters and papers, Duberman offers incisive portraits of these deeply introspective intellectuals as they struggled to find love, intimacy and self-acceptance in a homophobic society and take courageous public stands against discrimination and injustice. The narrative occasionally bogs down in the details of internecine bickering within political groups, as lefties of the era—Bayard Rustin, A.J. Muste, Dave Dellinger and others—parade through the pages. McReynolds might as easily have been speaking for Deming when he wrote, "I am not a passive bystander—and that is what makes life exciting."

An evocative rendering of committed lives.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 15, 2011

Duberman (Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus, CUNY; Stonewall) traces the intersecting lives of gay political activists Barbara Deming (1917-84) and David McReynolds (b. 1929), who were both dedicated to the causes of peace and civil rights, which are closely linked to their other passions: socialism for McReynolds, feminism for Deming. The selection of these two for a joint biography may at first seem unusual as they were merely acquaintances and not unique in their convictions or radical activism or in identifying as gay Americans. Nor did Deming or McReynolds always agree on the best methods for their activism, or work in concert in their efforts. Yet as readers follow the two strands of this biography, they will find numerous similarities. Albeit separately, both walked for civil rights in the South, traveled to North Vietnam to witness and protest the war, and contributed significant theory and dialog to the philosophy of their movements. VERDICT Duberman's extensively researched work highlights their courage to confront the parts of American society they found unjust and the role they played in changing social mores. Recommended for graduate students or activists familiar with the history of radical movements of the late 20th century, as Duberman does assume some prior knowledge.--Laura Ruttum, Denver

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2011
Female presidential candidates and gay marriages were unimaginable during the middle of the twentieth century. Discrimination and marginalization were daily facts of life for anyone who wasnt a straight, white male. The fight for basic civil rights has always been fraught with struggle and strife. It was the common goals of equality and acceptance that led the lives of Deming, an out lesbian, and McReynolds, an openly gay man (the first to run for president of the U.S., on the Socialist Party ticket in 1980), to intersect in the socially turbulent 1960s. McReynolds, a left-wing writer and antiwar protester still alive and kicking at 81, was a friend and contemporary of Allen Ginsberg and Alvin Ailey. Deming, a feminist and tireless advocate for nonviolent social change who died of cancer in 1984, was romantically involved with artist Mary Meigs for nearly 20 years. Duberman, a well-respected history professor and Pulitzer Prize finalist, chronicles the fascinating lives and complex friendship of these two passionate, radical activists in this dazzlingly detailed dual biography.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)