Books: Outer Darkness

KENT STATE, WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY by James Michener. 559 pages. Random House. $10.

The most startling and depressing passages in James Michener's account of the Kent State tragedy are not those about the killing of four students one year ago (he deals with that almost mat-ter-of-factly), but those wherein he records the hate and anger—against a whole student generation—that surfaced afterward. A mother of three Kent State students: "Anyone who appears on the streets of a city like Kent with long hair, dirty clothes or barefooted deserves to be shot." Where did...

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