West End Quartet

It is the heyday of student activism. The Reagan Revolution dominates America; Castro rules Cuba. The Sandinistas have a foothold in Nicaragua. In Manhattan, four university students-rebellious Kleio, emotional Mina, naïve Gwen, and arrogant, aristocratic Mal-reconfigure a grand West Side apartment into a feminist commune they call Group, to fight nuclear power and pontificate on all things radical. But when ideology turns violent, Group falls apart, and its members go their separate ways. Thirty years later, Mal convinces Group to meet for a reunion in Greece. No longer idealists, each woman faces her own internal struggle. Kleio must balance the demands of single motherhood against the reality of a life-threatening illness. Newly widowed Mina wants to restart her life, but her daughter's criminal activities make that difficult. Gwen, shaken by a doomed love affair, has reached the pinnacle of success in an academic career uncertain of what the future holds, whereas Mal's decades of repressing her losses have not erased the damage they caused. She longs for healing. And what of the next generation, to whom Group's ideals are bequeathed? Through four interrelated narratives, West End Quartet explores what happens when women who set out to change the world find themselves changed instead.