Demons and Demos: Shame, Love, My Life on the Left A Memoir

At six years old, Dick Roman was sexually assaulted by a stranger. Seven years later, his brother-the hero of his childhood-was swept into one of the greatest scandals in college basketball history. Those traumas made for a difficult personal life of shame and self-doubt but also gave Roman a sense of empathy and solidarity with others who were struggling-an awareness that turned him into a decades-long activist fighting for social justice-and after years of therapy, able to achieve greater self-compassion and find the love for which he longed. The memoir tracks a journey that begins on the immigrant streets and basketball courts of New York City in the '40s and '50s and moves on to the world of the Left- the U.S. in the turbulent '60s, the Canadian since 1970, and cross-border solidarity struggles since the '90s.As his journey draws to a close, the author takes us to the world of old age-the loss of his generation, the death of family, friends, and fellow activists, and the inescapable challenges of his own physical decline and the nearness of death."A life that shines through radiantly in the pages of this memoir. It's a life that has taken him from New York to Mexico and Canada and beyond, a life that has somehow managed to encapsulate many of the great social movements of the latter decades of the twentieth century.... readers can come to know him in the pages of this exciting and illuminating memoir."Matthew Goodmanfrom the Foreword"In this brave and revealing memoir, Dick Roman's vivid memories of a life on the left are offered in tandem with the internal demons that have accompanied him throughout it. Dick does not merely describe his life, but interrogates it, seeking answers and drawing links between personal and societal suffering. The reader will be richly rewarded by delving into this offering of a fully examined life."Anna Miransky, author of Poem by Poem, Fable by Fable which received the 2025 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the category of Yiddish.