Three years after her literary debut with Party

Party/Girlfriends, praised by Kurt Vonnegut as

"strong, imaginative, spookily candid," Ronni Sand-

roff gives us a powerful new novel. In Fighting Back

she takes us into the life, the feelings, the fears of a

young woman entangled in- and trying desperatcly

to get out of-a religious organization that has a total

and terrifying control over its members.

The Church of All is in New York, its converts

on the street corners-their faces shining with

sincerity-stopping pedestrians, pressing leaflets on

them, speaking earnestly about the Church. But

Jeanie Burger knows more about it than they do.

She was there at the beginning, when the Church of

All was only a small commune on Vancouver Island,

a few young people trying a different way of living,

held hy the presencc of the mystical Eli Zinger, his

power of leadership almost beyond his own control,

his serenc blue eyes seeming to promise all of them

whatever they most wanted.

What Jeanie wanted was great social transfor-

marion. A girl from the Bronx, a third-generation

radical (listening to her grandfather s stories, to the

political discussions swirling above her head, figur-

ing things out), she was raised to take on the world.

And Eli Zinger wrapped her in her dream, gave her

a mission, made her his political adviser. Until the

dream began to dissolve: the commune becoming

"the Church" (books forbidden, meditation en-

forced), different forces taking control-people she

didn t like, or trust. Her husband, Dennis, "the

Brainstorm," always engaged in some kind of re-

search she didn t want to know about.

Until, finally, Jeanie walked out, taking her

child with her. raking also certain letters, papers,

documents: proof that the Church of All was getting

money-from frightening sources-as "an experiment

in social control."