Sam Gridley

The Bourgeois Anarchist Sam Gridley

Susie Alioto is a longtime political militant. After college she spent two decades in an anarchist commune, and at age 66 her beliefs haven't wavered. She protests with young people to demand justice and human rights. She marches for gun control, for Black Lives Matter, for action against climate change. A portrait of her special anarchist hero, Errico Malatesta, hangs on her refrigerator with an inspirational quote of his: "Impossibility never prevented anything from happening."




Yet Susie now teaches at an expensive private school, and her life is comfortably middle-class. Her son Eric, a budding mathematician, mocks her as a "bourgeois anarchist."




As the story opens, violence breaks out at a peaceful rally, and Susie is injured. A young woman dressed in Antifa gear rescues her, and Susie is drawn into a mysterious intrigue involving angry activists and devious capitalists, gentrification, arson, even mobsters. Cops pound on her door to demand information. Though Susie tries to hew to her principles, the true nature of justice becomes muddled, and her anarchist heroes-including the grizzled Malatesta on her refrigerator-provide no clear answer. People's lives are involved, and she doesn't know what to do. The dilemma escalates into an existential crisis.




In the midst of this turmoil, Susie stumbles into unexpected romance. But is the new man any more reliable than the ones who've failed her in the past? Meanwhile her son, the apolitical math geek, adds an offbeat and comic perspective that may offer a clue to the personal and political intrigues.