Between the Lines

The Back Bay Mainline is a struggling alternative newspaper in Boston, a weekly which began as a radical underground paper in the 60s. Now the postgraduate staff, who used to do everything from writing the articles to hawking the paper themselves, are replacing their sense of common cause with career advancement and pairing off—what historian Christopher Lasch calls “the cult of personal relations”—and personal ambitions. That cult gathers members as political faith withers.

“Remember when we used to do everything ourselves?” reminisces one character, poring over snapshots of demonstrations and the first days of the Mainline.

“Yeah. We were dangerous then,” replies another wistfully.

As the Mainline’s readership and finances have waxed, the staff’s early enthusiasm and idealism has waned. The larger story is of the takeover of the paper by a publications conglomerate. That commercialization is writ small in the characters’ ditching of their common cause for individual careers and relationships. Michael (Stephen Collins, who played Hugh Sloan in All the President’s Men) is consumed by his ambition to profit from his years in the counterculture by selling a book on the subject. He is enchanted with his own struggle. When fellow writer Harry asks for tips on how to get an agent, Michael looks incredulous. “Do you know how hard I had to work? How many secretaries hung up on me?” There is something grim about his calculated climb.