Jonathan Lerner as a founding member of the Weather Underground in the 70s (left). Today, as a writer and urban design consultant. His new book is out now.
My good friend Jonathan Lerner, a writer whose musings on food, art and design is known to millions of minions, released his second novel last month. Steadfastly refusing to write an autobiography about his time in the Weather Underground (pissing off those of us who are fascinated with the Timothy McVeighs of the Left), he wrote, instead, a novel set in the time period. Here’s a great description from Artscriticsatl.com:
Lerner’s second novel, “Alex Underground,” plays out against this tumultuous era of American history. Alex and his comrade-in-arms, Doug, members of the fictitious Raucous Caucus, instigate a violent incident on campus, then run away to evade arrest. Eventually they flee to Canada, take a ship to Castro’s Cuba, toil in the hot sun for a couple of months in homage to the Communist ideal, then make their way to a decaying Havana. Here, too, begins Alex’s personal quest as a repressed gay man desperate to uncork his homosexuality, deeply in love with his charismatic straight friend.
When he and Doug separate for security reasons, Alex is bereft of the object of his passions and the novel’s emotional core dissolves. Alex’s solitary travels through Europe see him struggling to reckon with his sexual identity, a fugitive turning tricks for a few dollars, picking up men in grungy bars and restrooms. He always has his eye on the money, and it’s hard not to feel more repugnance than sympathy for his situation. Soon enough, his unease turns to a voracious, omnivorous hunger for sex that he compares to an addictive drug.
You can order Jonathan’s book here (It’s a terrific read). For a true-life account of his Weather Underground days (GRIPPING) click here (it’s in an essay he wrote for The Washington Post).