Surviving is a memoir written from the perspective of a woman who was attending Kent State in 1970 when the National Guard opened fire on students protesting Richard Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia. Four students were killed. Nine others were wounded including one of the protesters who was paralyzed.
I was also in college when the massacre occurred. I remember the news coverage and first hearing the Neil Young song, “Ohio.” This book contains a unique perspective on the shootings because the narrator, Patty, lived near the school and was a journalism major who was working at the college radio station and newspaper. She was there when the killings occurred. She was covering the event and had also been at previous protests on the campus. One aspect I found particularly interesting was the different attitudes of the students and the townies, even Patty's own family. Her mother's reaction when Patty told her she'd been at the protest was, “You were there? You should have been shot.”
This memoir is not exclusively about the massacre. Most of the book is about a young woman's struggles with problems typical of many college students: financial issues, academic issues and relationship issues. Patty's relationship issues are particularly hard, sometimes because of bad luck, but other times because of poor decisions.
The writing feels honest. Patty's emotions are not diminished into good or bad, but instead show the complexities of her life and the struggles of growing up in the late sixties and early seventies. I recommend Surviving to anyone who likes honest memoirs and also to people who are looking for a different perspective on the Kent State massacre.
