A Saving Remnant: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds
". . . [D]etailed and absorbing . . . [a]t a time when the country's poor are struggling, war rages on and and the word "socialist" is mostly just an insult hurled at any left-leaning politician or policy, there is something refreshing and inspiring about this story of unabashed radicals at work."—New York Times Book Review"[A] brilliant and remarkable biography . . . essential."—Choice"A fascinating dual biography . . .A Saving Remnantis an in-depth study of what it means to live the life of someone single-mindedly committed to a cause."—The Gay and Lesbian ReviewFemale 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 wasn’t 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.—Booklist