Student activism reached a zenith in the 1960s in America, with groups such as SDS and the Weathermen protesting the Vietnam War, the Black Panthers battling racism and NOW rallying for women's rights. Discussion of the decade — its crises, debates, literature, journalism — will provide a richer (and welcomed) context for discussion of Vida, the text. The historical milieu out of which Vida takes shape is wellcaptured in James Kunen's nonfiction record entitled The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary (Avon, 1972).

1. What is "radical" about Vida's activism? Why is she a fugitive? Did she ever want to be?

2. With this novel, how does Piercy evoke "the fierce and fatal isolation of the fugitive?"

3. Even in her most exhausted, desperate moments, what keeps Vida from turning herself in?

4. Piercy's prose, in Vida, has often been characterized as "thick." Do you find this depth of detail...