cover image Being Red

Being Red

Howard Fast. Laurel Press, $13 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-440-50412-2

Fast, who joined the Communist party in 1944 and recanted without regrets 13 years later, describes Cold War paranoia; its effect on him and on other Americans who made the same choice; and his struggle to publish Spartacus . According to PW , Fast is a ``master storyteller'' whose ``insights into the failure of American communism make his book valuable as well as highly entertaining.'' (Nov.)