Vida (novel)

The eponymous heroine is a 1960s anti-war and pro-environmental activist who has in the modern day (1980s—when the novel was written and is partially-set) become part of an illegal underground revolutionary network which resembles the real Weatherman (later known as the Weather Underground). The story is told in the then present-day and in flashbacks to the 1960s.^[1] Vida struggles to maintain a double life; still having contacts with legitimate members of society, notably her lover Leigh, while continuing to carry out illegal actions against the government.

The novel is notable for describing what everyday-life was like for 60s radical fugitives living "underground", as Jo Walton writes:

Vida here is realising that the choices she has made have left her irrelevant not just politically but personally—her husband is marrying and having a baby with someone else, she is trapped with the other fugitives she increasingly dislikes, writing position papers nobody reads. She has false papers, a false name, she uses codes on the phone with her sister, she constantly has to appease people who are helping her. It’s very hard for her not to feel useless, because in fact she is useless, the revolution she was waiting for never happened, and she can’t be with the people she loves. And the other characters are just as real and well developed, even the minor characters.^[1]