Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young

Longlisted for the 2026 National Book Award for Nonfiction
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An Independent Press Bestseller

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A New Yorker and New York Times "Best Book of 2026 So Far"

The son of Weather Underground radicals tells the story of a childhood on the run and a half-century of revolutionary struggle in America.

Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born underground. His parents were fugitives after a decade fighting the US government; his mother was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. All his life, Dohrn’s parents said his birth marked a clean break with violent revolutionary struggle, but in this explosive memoir, he discovers that story wasn’t entirely true.

This masterpiece of personal and social history brings us inside an infamous family and their lives underground. Drawing on exclusive interviews, declassified FBI files, and long-hidden letters, photos, and diaries, Dohrn tells a new story of radical resistance, including revelations about the Weathermen’s bombing campaign, their secret alliance with the Black Liberation Army, and the dramatic prison break of Assata Shakur.

Reckoning with the emotional damage the Weathermen inflicted on their victims, their children, and themselves, Dohrn’s unflinching memoir explores the roots of radicalism and asks how a young person survives when the place they feel safest—with their family—also puts them in danger.