Chasing the Red Car

"Chasing the Red Car brings the reader vividly into the San Fernando Valley of the 1950s and brings alive the pervasive fear and disruption that ordinary families experienced under McCarthyism."

-Julia Harumi Mass, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California

Transplanted from her home in the Bronx to the burgeoning San Fernando Valley of 1947, Kim LeBow is faced with trouble on every side. Her home life is rocky and emotionally unpredictable, and the McCarthy-era communist witch hunts strike all around, threatening Kim's father and even reaching into her high school.

The political struggles and personal cataclysms that follow change Kim from an open and caring young girl into a political activist and educator, while leaving emotional scars that only time-and the return of the great love of her life-are able to heal.

Drawing parallels between the political repression of the 1950s and the abuses of executive power after 9/11, Chasing the Red Car reminds us that all politics is personal and that the truth of George Santayana's maxim about history repeating itself can be seen all around us every day.

Ellen Ruderman is a psychotherapist in Encino, California, and the author of many academic publications. This is her first novel.