THE COMPANY YOU KEEP

If ever a book cried out for an editor and an abridgment, this is it. Neil Gordon writes about the marijuana-and-revolution fueled 1960s but is so long-winded and disjointed that the story elicits boredom. Portions of the book, like the accounts of the evolution of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and The Weathermen, are fascinating. It's just that reaching them is annoying. The talented cast, including Donald Corren, Arthur Morey, and Kirby Heyborne, does an admirable job keeping the book on track, but the narrators are limited by the material. Written as a series of letters to a fugitive Weatherman's daughter, the work often sounds like the cast is, well, reading a letter. There’s a great story here for anyone willing to work for it. M.S. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2012]