On Thursday J. brought me Vivian Gornick’s biography of Emma Goldman because he is a little bit the Sasha to my Emma (in a good way, I promise) and I spent the weekend reading it on subways and protecting it from rain and hail while running around the city working. Which is an appropriate way to read about Emma Goldman, all breathless and busy in a whirl of activity, finishing the last pages in a park on Sunday before going to look in on Melissa’s cat.

I am writing this to the tune of the Sisters of Mercy’s “Under the Gun,” with the fabulous Terri Nunn (of Berlin fame) belting “Are you living for love?” over and over, and while in one way that’s utterly appropriate for writing about Emma in another way, well, no.

Because Gornick is mostly interested in psychoanalyzing Goldman’s love life, and while I’m as salaciously inclined as any girl and I love my gossip and I’d be an utter liar if I didn’t say that I enjoyed the tidbits from Goldman and Ben Reitman’s love letters as much as anything in this book, I’m also sick and bloody tired of reading people reading radical women’s love lives as indicators of their politics.