Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and one of Literary Hub’s “10 Great Nonfiction Titles to Read in May,” this memoir tells the remarkable story of a childhood spent underground and a family’s half-century of revolutionary struggle in America.

Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born into a life of secrecy. His parents were fugitives after years of fighting the U.S. government, and his mother was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Throughout his life, Dohrn was told that his birth marked a decisive break from violent revolutionary activism. In this deeply researched and revealing memoir, however, he discovers that the story was far more complicated.

Blending personal narrative with social history, Dohrn takes readers inside one of America’s most infamous radical families. Drawing on exclusive interviews, declassified FBI files, and previously unseen letters, photographs, and diaries, he presents a new account of radical resistance in the United States. The book includes revelations about the Weathermen’s bombing campaign, their covert alliance with the Black Liberation Army, and the dramatic prison escape of Assata Shakur.

At the same time, Dohrn confronts the emotional consequences of revolutionary politics, examining the harm inflicted on victims, family members, and the activists themselves. Unflinching and deeply personal, the memoir explores the origins of radicalism and asks what it means to grow up in a family that feels both like a refuge and a source of danger.

Includes 67 photographs.