Radishes and Red Bandanas

In 1967, as widespread resistance against the Vietnam War rocks college campuses, Becky Jamison leaves her small Kentucky hometown to spend four years at Lake Forest College near Chicago. There she confronts the political and cultural turmoil of the times—protests, demonstrations, riots, occupations, assassinations, drugs, and free love. Radishes and Red Bandanas  is a work of historical fiction that tells the story of Becky's journey through those turbulent times of the late 1960s. 

As a woman, Becky will never have to fight in a war she doesn’t believe in, but the draft comes to her nevertheless in its hunger for her brothers, friends and lovers. She watches their agonizing decisions—go to Canada, jail, or Vietnam, and she becomes the voice of the anti-war movement on her college campus. 

Years later, Becky’s son follows in her footsteps as he fights for justice in the streets of New York City. Interspersed throughout the novel are vignettes of her son’s protests and arrests during the Occupy Wall Street Movement forty years after Becky graduates. 

In this coming-of-age novel, Becky Jamison realizes the importance of speaking out no matter the cost and discovers the redemptive power of friends and love to heal in times of tragedy.