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Sure, you’ll be out organizing and agitating this summer, but when you do take a break, here are some suggestions of political novels culled from among members of the Democratic Left board and DSA’s National Political Committee. If you try them out, we encourage you to order from a local independent bookseller. — Ed.
The Green Corn Rebellion, by William Cunningham: This 2010 reissue of the powerful 1935 novel about the 1917 rebellion by Oklahoma’s tenant farmers, members of the Socialist Party, against the draft and World War I is still gripping. There is a fine introduction by historian Nigel Sellars, author of Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World in Oklahoma. I half-expected this to be mainly of historic and regional interest, but I was pleasantly surprised. It stands alongside Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Upton Sinclair’s better work.
Stuart Elliot
Tell Me a Riddle, : It’s not a novel, but I’ll make a case for including these four short stories. The book includes the working-class feminist classic, “I Stand Here Ironing,” the monologue of a mother reflecting on raising her youngest daughter in poverty. It’s fairly autobiographical. Union organizing and mothering four children (the first of which she had at age 19) prevented Olsen from being very prolific. She produced beautiful and insightful political prose, with an eleventh-grade education and very little time to dedicate to her craft.
Amber
Source: Summer Reads for Reds: Political Fiction
