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Memoir recounts life as a Berrigan daughter IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY: ON BEINNG RAISED BY RADICALS AND GROWING INTO REBELLIOUS MOTHERHOOD By Frida Berrigan Published by O/R Books, $17.50
Reviewed by DIANE SCHARPER
The best parts of Frida Berrigan's book, It Runs in the Family, focus on the author's father, the late Philip Berrigan. He and his wife, Elizabeth McAlister, made headlines in the 1960s, '70s and '80s not so much because they left religious life and were married, but because the two were nonviolent revolutionaries.
One of Philip Berrigan's most publicized efforts occurred on May 17, 1968, when he and eight other men and women entered the Selective Set' vice Offices in Catonsville, Md., and burned draft records with homemade napalm. They were arrested and, in a highly publicized trial, sentenced to jail. Their actions fueled the movement against the Vietnam War.
As their daughter explains it, Berrigan and McAlister met at a funeral in 1966, fell in love, married and raised three kids. During this time, the former Josephite priest and the former member of the Religious of the Sacred Heart continued their peace and civil rights activities while painting houses to earn money. Although they were excommunicated, they practiced an early church Christianity...