Dangerous, Dirty, Violent and Young

The son of the FBI’s most wanted woman tells the electrifying, heart-rending story of a childhood on the run – and a half-century of revolutionary struggle in America

We all grapple with a past that defines us: culture, religion, a family story. But what happens when you inherit a revolution?

Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born without a birth certificate. His parents had gone underground after a decade committed to violent revolution against racial injustice and the Vietnam war; his mother co-founded a group called the Weathermen, allies of the Black Panthers, and replaced Angela Davis on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. His parents assured him that his birth marked a clean break with the past, an end to radical action. But, as Dohrn discovers in this explosive memoir, this version of the family story isn’t entirely true.

A masterpiece of personal and social history, Dangerous, Dirty, Violent and Young offers a page-turning account of an infamous family and their life in hiding, as well as the political battles of the ‘60s and ‘70s. At its heart it asks bigger questions: how a child can survive when the place they feel safest – with their family – also puts them in danger? And what does it mean to be a good revolutionary or to want to change the world?

Author Biography

Zayd Ayers Dohrn is an acclaimed playwright and screenwriter. He is also a Professor and Director of the MFA on Writing for the Screen + Stage at Northwestern University. His recent projects include the hit narrative podcast Mother Country Radicals and the punk/metal/hip-hop protest musical Revolutions.