The Love Children (Classic Feminist Writers) - Softcover

"A novel that feels like memoir, there are many beautiful passages and poignant moments. . . " --Publishers Weekly

"French's meticulous and affecting tale of the forging of one woman's conscience encompasses thoughtful portraits of 'love children, ' from peace activists to members of unconventional families, and a forthright critique of the counterculture that puts today's wars, struggles for equality, and environmental troubles into sharp perspective."
--Booklist

"The Love Children is valuable in its exploration and depiction of the many ways in which gender can still be a limitation, even within a supposedly more enlightened society."--Bust

"Marilyn French has left us with the perfect parallel to The Women's Room, a novel about the 'love children' who were born to that earlier struggling generation, and who now celebrate the joy of feminism. Readers will find their own lives here--and the heart and mind of a woman who helped save them." --Gloria Steinem

"I fell completely into the university created in The Love Children--the Vietnam War and the lives of women and girls in the 60s and 70s. Marilyn French asks, with perfect attention to detail and scene, if we learn from our mistakes. Once again she gives us the ammunition to change our lives. It is a generous parting gift from one of the best minds of our time." --Carol Jenkins, founder of the Women's Media Center

"A fictionalized memoir that is perfect reading for the girls we once were, and for the new generation of girls we cherish today." --Stella Duffy, author of Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore

"Beautifully written, kind and subtle, a nostalgic reminder of idealism, of people politics, of the links between the land and social changes - here, in fictional form, is the background to all the issues still we wrestle with. A lovely novel." --Kate Mosse, author of Labyrinth

Marilyn French's 1977 novel The Women's Room epitomized the feminist movement and became one of the most influential books of our time. Now she has captured the complexities of life for the daughters of the Women's Room generation in her highly anticipated new novel The Love Children.
It is the late 1960s in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Grateful Dead is playing on the radio and teenagers are wearing long hair and blue jeans. Jess Leighton, the daughter of a temperamental painter and a proto-feminist Harvard professor, is struggling to make sense of her world amid racial tensions, Vietnam War protests, and anti-government rage. With more options than her mother's generation, but no role model for creating the life she desires, Jess experiments with sex and psychedelic drugs as she searches for happiness on her own terms. In the midst of joining and fleeing a commune, growing organic vegetables, and operating a sustainable restaurant, Jess grapples with the legacy of her mother's generation.