From the 1991 HarperPerennial edition of The Sweetest Dream by Doris Lessing: This story of a family, spanning most of the twentieth century, has its fulcrum in the sixties, that embattled decade about which argument becomes louder each day.

The use of that time, bursting the old bonds and demanding freedoms, were seen by some of their elders in a manner not at all as they saw themselves, as romantic idealists, but as deeply damaged people.

Old Julia, the clan’s matriarch, knows why. “You can’t have two dreadful wars and then say ‘that’s it, and now everything will go back to normal.’ They’re screwed up, our children, they are children of war.” Read More→