Rebel Mother, Peter Andreas
Rebel Mother, Peter Andreas
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Rebel Mother
My Childhood Chasing the Revolution

Author: Peter Andreas

Narrator: Robert Fass

Unabridged: 9 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/02/2017


Synopsis

Carol Andreas was a traditional 1950s housewife from a small Mennonite town in central Kansas who became a radical feminist and Marxist revolutionary. From the late sixties to the early eighties, she went through multiple husbands and countless lovers while living in three states and five countries. She took her youngest son, Peter, with her wherever she went, even kidnapping him and running off to South America after his straitlaced father won a long and bitter custody fight.

They were chasing the revolution together, though the more they chased it the more distant it became. They battled the bad "isms" (sexism, imperialism, capitalism, fascism, consumerism), and fought for the good "isms" (feminism, socialism, communism, egalitarianism). They were constantly running, moving, hiding. Between the ages of five and eleven, Peter attended more than a dozen schools and lived in more than a dozen homes, moving from the suburbs of Detroit to a hippie commune in Berkeley to a socialist collective farm in Chile to highland villages and coastal shantytowns in Peru. When they secretly returned to America they settled down clandestinely in Denver, where his mother changed her name to hide from his father.

About Peter Andreas

Peter Andreas is the John Hay Professor of International Studies at Brown University, where he holds a joint appointment between the Department of Political Science and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Peter has published ten books, including Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America. He has also written for a range of publications, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Guardian, Harper's, the Nation, the New Republic, Slate, and the Washington Post. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Cornell University, he lives with his family in Providence, Rhode Island.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Clif

Unlike most memoirs of dystopian childhoods, this author as a child was loved by and had a good relationship with both his mother and father. Also, neither parent had a drug problem nor was alcoholic. So why do I call his childhood dystopian? The author as a child may have been loved by both mother......more

Goodreads review by Thomas

So here we have another memoir about an unconventional childhood. I have to admit, I have a weakness for those. They always bring something new to the table about the vast range of human experience. This one is no exception. I enjoyed it. I have to admit that this wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I......more

Goodreads review by Karen

I loved this book. Some of it reminded me of myself as a young activist single mom raising my son and other parts reminded me of my friends. The author writes of his adventures living with his mom under Allende's Chile and then among Shining Path activists in Peru. All the while I was reading it, I......more

Goodreads review by Jana

Memoirs, especially memoirs about child/parent relationships, are always complicated. This one is too. But bravo to the author for finding the good in his radical childhood. Hopefully it helps him be more aware of his privilege and work toward leveling the playing field.......more

Goodreads review by Michael

One of the rare novels that impressed me all throughout, it was deeply sentimental and unforgettable. The story of Carol Andreas about how she sacrificed her morals and dignity to provide a noble life for her son was admirable. While I did not applaud her kidnapping her son, I felt that she was just......more