Left Sexual

Blood Dues By Dotson Rader Knopf, 211 pp., $6.95 Of the plethora of almost-young New Leftists currently doing books in America, Dotson Rader may be among the few who write, not just type. And as he agonizes his way through the contradictions of his rigid politics and his freewheeling lifestyle, he exposes himself repeatedly, demonstrating an admirable, frequently honest vulnerability. He is also fixated, I think to his detriment, on a clever but ultimately tiring image, which his I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore! (1969) and his perhaps autobiographical novel — the best of his books to date, Government Inspected Meat (1971)—also dwelled on: the “sexual-political construct [which] has to be leftist.”

Blood Dues does not so much document as ramble through the withering away of the no scholarly New Left. A compilation of bits and pieces from magazines, with some new material, it only fitfully holds together as narrative, and rarely as analysis. But throughout, Rader’s ideological attachments, like messy suppurations, ooze through the pages. One ought not second-guess an author, but at peril I do: I think he should by now be ready to leave some of that baggage behind, and let his literary talents alone carry him. He’s that rarity among his flock, the bird as craftsman.

DB

About the Author

David Brudnoy

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Blood Dues By Dotson Rader Knopf, 211 pp., $6.95 Of the plethora of almost-young New Leftists currently doing books in America, Dotson Rader may be among the few who write, not just type. And as he agonizes his way through the contradictions of his rigid politics and his freewheeling lifestyle, he exposes himself repeatedly, demonstrating an admirable, frequently honest vulnerability. He is also fixated, I think to his detriment, on a clever but ultimately tiring image, which his I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore! (1969) and his perhaps autobiographical novel — the best of his books to date, Government Inspected Meat (1971)—also dwelled on: the “sexual-political construct [which] has to be leftist.”

Blood Dues does not so much document as ramble through the withering away of the no scholarly New Left. A compilation of bits and pieces from magazines, with some new material, it only fitfully holds together as narrative, and rarely as analysis. But throughout, Rader’s ideological attachments, like messy suppurations, ooze through the pages. One ought not second-guess an author, but at peril I do: I think he should by now be ready to leave some of that baggage behind, and let his literary talents alone carry him. He’s that rarity among his flock, the bird as craftsman.