The Hill, Harriet Clark’s quiet, thoughtful debut novel, is told from the perspective of Suzanna, who was still a baby when her mother participated in a bank robbery to finance the revolution. People died during the heist, and her mom, the getaway driver, was caught and sentenced to life in prison. “Forever and ever” is how Suzanna understands it, and she vows to visit the prison on the hill every week as long as her mother is there.

The premise of this book is autobiographical. Harriet Clark is herself the daughter of Judith Clark, a member of the 1960s radical political organization the Weather Underground who was involved in a bank robbery that resulted in the death of a security guard and two police officers. I read it right after finishing Zayd Ayers Dohrn's Dangerous, Dirty, Violent and Young: My Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground, so my reaction to Clark’s novel was impacted by the experience of reading Zayd’s memoir.

As I shared in a brief review of Zayd’s book in the RFC’s fall 2026 newsletter, I was fascinated by Zayd’s exploration of his family history and the way that growing up underground felt normal to him. Suzanna shares a similar experience; visiting her mother in prison is part of her weekly routine, and she doesn’t spend a lot of time interrogating her feelings about it.

I can understand how something that feels unfathomable to many can just feel like life when you’re in the midst of it. In my early days at the RFC, when I met members of our community at fundraising parties or Gatherings, people often asked me when I learned “the truth” about my grandparents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. My answer, that I don’t remember ever not knowing who they were and what happened to them, was confusing to the majority of people I encountered. I eventually got in the habit of adding an analogy: I asked people if they remembered learning their names. Most people said no, and I explained that that was similar to my experience of learning about my grandparents. It was gradual enough that I don’t ever remember being told or not knowing it, the same way I don’t ever remember not knowing my name or being told what it was.

Despite that understanding, I found myself wanting more introspection from Suzanna’s character and from The Hill. As much as I appreciate the beauty of Clark’s writing and the strength of Suzanna’s voice in The Hill, I was left wondering what Suzanna thought about her grandmother taking her to the bank her mother robbed and leaving her there? Did she ever ask her mother some of the hard questions Zayd asks of his parents and how the choices they made impacted him and his siblings?

While I desired more introspection from Suzanna, Clark’s novel raises so many important questions about the confluence of activism, parenthood, community and the ways that targeting and trauma persist and morph through years and generations.

Perhaps most compelling to me, Zayd and Harriet in their own, very different ways challenge the critique I imagine many of our grantee families are familiar with: the assertion that you can't be an activist who takes risks and be a loving parent. Dangerous, Dirty, Violent and Young and The Hill reject that dichotomy by telling the stories of children who felt loved and supported by their activist parents even as they questioned and wrestled with their parents’ choices and the often painful impacts on their childhood. It is an assertion often aimed at my grandparents, Ethel and Julius, and sometimes seen as justification for their executions. Understanding the often fraught choices made by parents whose love for their children inspires their work for a more just world is at the core of the RFC project. Perhaps this is why I am so fascinated by both these books.

What about you? I’d love to hear from other readers what they found most compelling or surprising about these books; feel free to comment below and join the conversation.