Loose Change - by Sara Davidson (Paperback)

About the Book

This is the compelling story of the experiences of three young women who attended the University of California at Berkeley and became caught up in the tumultuous changes of the Sixties. Davidson's honest and detailed chronicle reveals the hopes, confusion and disillusionment of a generation whose rites of passage defined one of the most contentious decades of this century.

Book Synopsis

This is a compelling story of the experiences of three young women who attended the University of California at Berkeley and became caught up in the tumultuous changes of the Sixties. Sara Davidson follows the three-Susie, Tasha, and Sara herself-from their first meeting in 1962, through the events that "radicalized" them in unexpected ways in the decade after the years in Berkeley. Susie navigates through the Free Speech Movement and the early women's movement in Berkeley, and Tasha enters the trendy New York art and society scene. Sara, a journalist, travels the country reporting on the stories of the sixties.

The private lives that Davidson reconstructs are set against the public background of the time. Figures such as Timothy Leary, Mario Savio, Tom Hayden, and Joan Baez are here, as are the many young people who sought alternatives to "the establishment" through whatever means seemed worth exploring: radical politics, meditation, drugs, group sex, or dropping out. Davidson's honest and detailed chronicle reveals the hopes, confusion, and disillusionment of a generation whose rites of passage defined one of the most contentious decades of this century.

From the Back Cover

"The book is witty, sad, incisive, and totally clean of sociological cant or the pomposities of a certain kind of generalizing journalism. . . . It has the resonance of a good novel." --Dan Wakefield

"Sara Davidson is the liveliest historian of her generation."--Malcolm Cowley

"Sara Davidson is an expert witness. . . . Now, more than 10 years after leaving Berkeley, she has followed up on some of her friends, and presents an absorbing and carefully detailed account of their lives up until now, especially her own life and that of two others, Tasha and Susie. Every bit of it fascinating."--Diane Johnson

Review Quotes

"She has written personal histories that will demand and earn your attention and respect."--Carol Felsenthal, "About Books

About the Author

Sara Davidson's articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly and Rolling Stone. She is the author of Real Property (1980), Friends of the Opposite Sex (1984) and Rock Hudson: His Story (1986). She lives in Santa Monica, California.