Title: Politics 101 /
Authors: Smith, Anna, 1952-
Publisher: Canterbury University Press,
Year: 2006
Subjects: Students Fiction; New Zealand Fiction.; New Zealand
Abstract: Meg, Henry, Steph and Diana are all students in Wellington in the 1970s. Thrown together in the broad sphere of leftist politics, they find falling in and out of love just as mesmerising as it is for the middle classes they despise. While Henry is busy trying to run a Youth Summit, Meg suppresses her bourgeois passion for handcrafts and learns to go on demonstrations. Steph, Henry's lover, identifies with the jilted wife in a Katherine Mansfield story and stages a psychotic episode at Henry's Summit. Meanwhile, the radical Diana spends her time running military action training weekends for the revolution. Raids on government departments, street theatre, theft from friends and cruel betrayals are all part of the mix.