Radical Passions

Book excerpt: "The author takes you right along with her as she protests on the barricades during the tumultuous 1960's, works in a shipyard in the 1970's, builds a health clinic in Nicaragua in the 1980s, turns 50 in Peru in 2000, and searches for inner peace and balance every step of the way. These pages reveal how Kendall did indeed fulfill her destiny as a seeker/warrior-and to the reader's good fortune is now a writer as well. Don't miss it." -Max Elbaum, author, Revolution in the Air Brimming with honesty, humor, and zeal, Kendall Hale's memoir shares her remarkable journey from youthful adolescence to thoughtful maturity in Radical Passions. Shaped within the context of major historical events from the turbulent 1960s to today, Hale follows her evolution from being the daughter of Mormon parents to becoming a member of the Students for a Democratic Society and achieving spiritual maturity in her later years. Hale's journey is personal, yet universal. She explores her early college years protesting the Vietnam War, her young adulthood struggles in Boston with the new communist, feminist, and labor movements, and her transition to marriage and family. From her search for the socialist dream in Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, and Nicaragua during the Contra War to her role as a wife, mother, and veteran of a fractured marriage, Hale reveals her growing understanding of the world around her. A move to Asheville, North Carolina, spurred the birth and maturation of her spiritual quest. Hale describes how therapy, Buddhism, and spiritual travels in India, South America, and the Pacific led her back to the Blue Ridge mountains in a community replete with rednecks, polygamists, voracious developers, environmentalists, and New Age dreamers. Transitioning into menopause and the second half of life, Hale faces the challenges of aging and its potential flowering of wisdom and integration. A story for all who seek deeper meaning in their lives, Radical Passions is the inspiring tale of an ordinary woman's extraordinary life.