The Company You Keep
Neil Gordon
31 July 2014
9781447227830416 pages
Synopsis
When journalist Benjamin Schulberg discovers a link between liberal lawyer Jim Grant and a notorious Vietnam-era fugitive, the world that Jim has carefully built for himself and his daughter collapses.
His cover blown, Jim is forced to go on the run after decades living under his false identity. Still wanted for his part in an act of domestic terrorism in 1974, he must travel deep into his past to clear his name and save his young daughter.
Set against the backdrop of the Vietnam war, The Company You Keep is an intelligent thriller about political ideals, family loyalties, and the shadowy world of the radical anti-war group the Weather Underground.
An astonishing tour de force, at once an intellectual, emotional and political thriller . . . an American novel in which plot characters and ideas are in perfect balance. By bringing the past alive, Gordon enables us to see more clearly where America stands nowSan Francisco Chronicle
Rousing, cerebral . . . Gordon's plot is a doozy - a trio of doozies, in fact - yet utterly credible. He projects wrenching political and personal drama onto a slightly futuristic version of where we stand now as a people. In doing so he shows how we got here . . . What makes this novel so compelling is not only the ideological spectrum it covers but its emotional chiaroscuro . . . It bids well to enter the company of our best fiction about the Vietnam eraNew York Times
The Company You Keep works as a thriller, but the adventures . . . are grounded firmly in larger political and moral issues, in this case the passionate conviction that the radical opposition in the '60s to the Vietnam War represented the high point of American idealism, the best dream America ever had . . . The characters speak with passion about serious moral issues, and they admit to us the intimate moments of their lives where the political and the personal intersect. The result is a compelling storyLos Angeles Times
