Commie Pinko

Its 1958, the Cold War is on, and McCarthyism causes ordinary citizens to be suspected of treason. In Berkeley, California, fourteen-year-old Donna is happily organizing the Ritchie Valens fan club, when her father, a physics professor at the University of California, comes under investigation by the FBI. Her rebellious older sister, Alice, joins a group of beatniks before she is mysteriously whisked away from the family. Meanwhile, the sisters mother suffers a nervous breakdown and must be hospitalized. It is up to Donna to find Alice and to defend her father when he faces possible arrest. On May 13, 1960, at the San Francisco House Un-American Activities Committee hearing, Donna is caught between angry demonstrators and militant police in a dangerous conflict that ignites a decade of protest.

Praise for Janet Nichols Lynch

My Beautiful Hippie With realism, humor and honesty, [Lynch] describes ... psychedelic drugs, feminism, anti-war demonstrations and profound political upheaval.?