By Jonathan Lethem

A Twentieth Century American epic by prize-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem, applying his sharp, funny and perfectly crafted prose to an alternative history of America which puts a woman at its heart - a Jewish, Communist woman, a single mother, a second generation immigrant deeply involved in the civil rights movement.

In 1955 Rose Zimmer is kicked out of the American Communist party for her affair with a black policeman. Her ire and her radicalism, her incendiary disappointment in the Twentieth Century, prove inescapable for the generations that come after her - her idealistic hippy daughter Miriam, black stepson Cicero and her lost grandson Sergius. A fragmented and compelling story of modern America from the perspective of those who lost out.

Episode 9: Today's episode offers a moving glimpse into the relationship between Rose and her stepson Cicero as she struggles with her encroaching loss of memory.

Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Elizabeth Reeder

Produced by Allegra McIlroy. Show less