Shawn Shiflett

In this honest novel set in the racial tinderbox of Chicago in 1969, Simon Fleming, the white son of an activist minister, is sent to a predominately African American high school, feeling charged to carry out the family's commitment to school integration. He is dropped into a world where gang warfare, drug abuse, and violence are rampant. Simon's quest for survival introduces him to Clyde, a gangbanger turned political militant; Louis, a brilliant, self-destructive boy; Clark, a racist police officer who vies for allegiance in return for protection; John, a communist teacher who teaches Simon as much about politics as about biology; and Dia, the object of his affections. Hey, Liberal! exposes an out-of-touch education system and the universality of racial violence amidst a nation moving, inch by hard-fought inch, toward a more culturally diverse future.