Dancing with Mao and Miguel

by Kitty Kroger

Overview

Dancing with Mao and Miguel is the riveting story of love set against the backdrop of radical politics in the 1970s. A young woman strives to discover her own path in the face of personal and political obstacles.

When Jenny Apple meets Miguel, a fellow worker from the Dominican Republic, in a New Jersey factory, she is captivated by his revolutionary past but terrified by her attraction to him. Although she herself is involved in revolutionary work, she is consumed with doubts about the efficacy of fundamental social change in the U.S. She feels detached from her comrades and has grown weary of organizing in factories. As Jenny is drawn ever closer to Miguel, she attempts to surmount these misgivings as well as conquer her longtime fears of intimacy. Just when she may be making progress, she's thrust into a series of betrayals that threaten to devastate her.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940033138548
Publisher:	Kitty Kroger
Publication date:	03/31/2012
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	448 KB

About the Author

I grew up in Kalispell, Montana and spent my early years water skiing at Flathead Lake and hiking around Glacier Park. Colorado College is my alma mater, and after college in the Sixties it was off to Berlin, Germany for four years, where I spent my time organizing G.I.s to oppose the Vietnam War, as well as checking out East Germany and traveling around Europe. After this fascinating experience in which I was introduced to radical politics for the first time, I moved back to America and worked in auto factories and a copper refinery in New Jersey, trying to coax workers in a revolutionary direction. Much of the background material for my novel derives from these years.

I moved to Denver as a single mom and worked at Samsonite for three years making suitcases. But I always had a yearning to be a teacher, so I moved again—to Los Angeles, where I still live—to teach English as a Second Language.

I taught for 17 years and then became a school librarian. When the buildup to the Iraq War started, I helped organize a peace and justice group to try and stop the war. We didn't succeed.

Over the years, I'd taken many workshops in creative writing, so after my retirement a few years ago, I began to write fiction. I wrote a few short stories, participated in as many writing critique groups as I could track down, and read like crazy. During NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November of 2008, I wrote the first draft of my novel. Now three and a half years later, it's finally published. Dancing with Mao and Miguel is unrecognizable from that first draft.

Will I write another novel? I don't know. I have so many interests like activism, piano, photography, languages, Nonviolent Communication, travel. And life is short. However, writing is such fun that I don't know if I can stay away from it.