In the early eighties, not long after she wrote those words, my mom fell in love with my dad, Stanley Aronowitz, in precisely this beat-the-system way. A political organizer and socialist professor, Stanley had read a book review of Ellen’s and was so impressed that he asked Rosalyn Baxandall, a radical feminist and a mutual friend, for her number. They had a tentative first lunch, and things went quickly from there. My mom’s cousin Judy remembers the night when Ellen brought her new boyfriend over to Judy’s house for dinner. She had never seen Ellen be so unapologetically immersed in someone else, like there was a “glass globe” over them. Throughout the evening, the couple fluttered their eyes at each other. He caressed her wrists; she pushed his black curly hair out of his denim-blue eyes. Around this time, Ellen remarked to Judy, “What a big fish I’ve pulled in.”

Stanley was a husky hedonist who was often forgiven for his arrogance because of his formidable intellect and the twinkle in his eye and because, surprisingly, he was an excellent listener. He had a reputation as a bed hopper and had trouble managing his often concurrent love affairs. A prolific writer with working-class roots and a gift for public speaking, he was a larger-than-life figure within a certain socialist-leftist crowd. But I suspect Ellen wasn’t referring to any of this when she called my dad a “big fish.” Instead, she felt she had finally found a man with whom she could fuse commitment and passion, without that “stifling dependence or low-level static” she’d observed in others’ partnerships.