Red Hill Blues

It is 1953, and the United States government is running amok with the likes of J. Edgar Hoover and Joe McCarthy. In the little village of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, a small group of leftist intellectuals, writers and artists feels under siege. After the suspicious deaths of two Crotonites, one a prominent anti-Communist newspaper publisher, the F.B.I. steps up its surveillance of the village. Spies, political passions, and intrigue, which echo even today, become the norm. Two fourteen-year-old girls, whose families are upended by the crisis, are willy-nilly cast into the role of amateur sleuth. As the price of her snooping, one of them lands in the hospital with a serious injury. Harth sets the historical scene in the real Hudson River valley village with the authentic touch of an insider. Her colorful cast of characters includes actors, visual artists, an architect, and a shadowy cult psychiatrist. "Red Hill Blues" features occasional visual material, and its tone is surprisingly light.

Erica Harth grew up in Croton-on-Hudson during the period about which she writes. A professor emerita of Humanities and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University, she has authored several scholarly books on early modern France. She also compiled, edited, and contributed to a collection of original essays, ＂Last Witnesses: Reflections on the Wartime Internment of Japanese Americans＂ (New York: Palgrave, 2001-03. Others of her personal essays on this subject have appeared in various publications.