Confessions of a Guilty Freelancer

Susan Braudy: Family Circle

We can’t pick our parents, but it is even more perilous to pick your biographer. Susan Braudy was an unlucky choice, though Jean and Leonard Boudin did not pick her: she volunteered. Leonard Boudin had died by then, and Jean Boudin was, as usual, more generous than leery. Since I once was part of the Boudins’ “Circle,” I am not inclined to be so generous. Braudy and Kathy Boudin were classmates at Bryn Mawr College in the early 1960s. And even though there are a number of precedents for biographers who hate their subjects (the Robert Frost biography by Lawrance Thompson comes to mind), none make it quite as clear as Susan Braudy does. In her preface, she admits that in her college days envy for Kathy drove her to “the edge of tears,” that in her presenceshe “wilted”; “Tosomeone likeme,” Braudy writes, “a scholarship student from Philadelphia, Kathy was far scarier than preppies like Das Oughton.” Braudy, despite her lower-class pretensions, does not divulge any of her alleged childhood deprivations–her brother was a student at Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr’s male counterpart. Nonetheless, she and Kathy were a clash of cultures, a clash that played itself out during the seventies and eighties–the counterculture vs. the acquiring culture, Abbie Hoffman vs. Andy Warhol. Susan Braudy: Family Circle 139 140 Braudy’s list of previously published books reads like a found poem of her life and times. Between Marriage and Divorce (1975), Who Killed Sal Mineo? (1982), What the Movies Made Me Do (1985), This Crazy Thing Called Love (1992): that about sums up Braudy’s universe. But, to that list is added Family Circle, about another world altogether. For this book, Braudy turns herself into the Kitty Kelley of left politics. What Kelley did for the Royals, Braudy does for the Boudins. And theirs is quite a story: the stuff of potboiler novels. In outline, a famous radical lawyer, a seducer of juries and judges (along with any number of women), battles the government and courts on behalf of both well-heeled progressives and the down-and-out, winning famous cases–Judith Coplon, Paul Robeson, Ben Spock, the Harrisburg 7, Daniel Ellsberg–either in the courtroom or on appeal. His two children both rebel: one becoming a George H. W. Bush-appointed federal judge, a potential candidate for the Supreme Court, and the other an imprisoned accomplice to murder. A noble and long-suffering wife holds home and hearth together throughout the tempestuous times. Braudy’sversionofthismade-for-TV taleislargelyacut-and-paste job from a number of earlier books. Her original contribution is confined to both Leonard and Jean Boudin’s early years. Once the public eventsofthesixties,seventiesandeightiesbegin,Braudyhasverylittle new to offer. Her central thesis, that Kathy Boudin’s self-destructive behavior is largely the fault of her narcissistic father, an attempt to gain his attention and regard, even more than his love, is a reworking of Ellen Frankfort’scentralthemeinher1983book, KathyBoudinandtheDance of Death. Though Frankfort’s book is listed in Family Circle’s bibliography , it is not referred to at all in the text. Braudy wipes out a past that does not serve her interests. 141 Ellen Frankfort’s version of the father/daughter dynamic is somewhat crude, whereas Braudy’s is much more polished. Frankfort was a blunt personality, but often brilliant, nonetheless. Susan Braudy is the opposite, refined, but not much given to brilliance. Braudy’s general aspect certainly allowed her to jump class, if that is what she did, by attendinganexpensiveSevenSistersschool.Shealwayslookedlikeshe went to Bryn Mawr. No one would have mistaken Ellen Frankfort for a Bryn Mawr graduate. But in 2003, unlike 1983, Braudy’s intellectual shoplifting(howevercheapthegoods)ishighlyrewardedandpraised. The American left is hardly fashionable these days, and certainly not glamorous. The Hollywood celebrities who may claim some connection to left politics only have their fame slightly diminished by the association. Jean Boudin gave Braudy access to papers, as did Leonard’s law partner, Victor Rabinowitz. Both were interviewed, as were a few dozenacquaintancesoftheBoudins .ThecooperationthatBraudyenjoyed wasn’t so much a case of bait and switch, as it might appear; it was an honest interest to have Jean and Leonard’s life recorded. When this book was first announced a few years ago, it was said to beaboutthesocialandintellectuallifeoftheBoudins,theirmilieuand lifestyles, the salon culture they had maintained. The publication of the book was sped up when, unexpectedly, Kathy Boudin was paroled, after 22 years, in...