A Disturbance of Fate [Hardcover]

Mitchell J. Freedman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2003

A Disturbance of Fate is a vibrant work of alternative history that answers the provocative question of what would have happened had Robert F. Kennedy survived the 1968 assassination attempt. As Bobby Kennedy himself liked to say, "Some men see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?’" A Disturbance of Fate dares to dream about an alternative past . . . and provide inspiration for a more enlightened present and future.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this daring and compulsively page-turning historical what-if fiction, Robert F. Kennedy, on a lightning trip to Los Angeles in his campaign for the presidency in 1968, narrowly misses assassination by Sirhan Sirhan. "Bobby" (he preferred to be called "Bob") is undeterred. In Chicago, where radical students are preparing to throw the coming Democratic presidential convention into chaos, he manages to enlist radical Dave Dellinger, as well as Mayor Daley, in a bid to avoid chaos. So commences a remarkably realistic alternative world story that is at heart a 700-page political document covering a single generation. Its enormous panoply of mostly genuine names all play the expected roles, sometimes with little introduction (readers with knowledge of the period and its actors will be at an advantage). Unapologetically opinionated, challenging, thought provoking, the book only gradually veers from established, or as Freedman puts it, "first timeline" history. (The novel's own history is the "RFK timeline.") It is a pretend chronicle that Ted Sorensen, who is also a character, might have written, with illuminating-even entertaining-footnotes for both time lines. Kennedy defeats Republican Richard Nixon, who vanishes for keeps. There is no Watergate, but Ronald Reagan waits in the wings. Kennedy withdraws American forces from Vietnam and, proposing simultaneous American and Soviet military withdrawal from Europe, resolves the Cold War. He fights off sex scandals, keeps his anti-abortion wife, Ethel, happy, makes some mistakes but is finally reelected. Despite its length, this is more than a fantasy about a departed icon of American culture. In its final chapters and a devastating appendix, it is revealed to be a cautionary tale as well.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Freedman sets a formidable task for himself: writing an alternative history that describes what American life would have been like had Robert Kennedy lived and been twice elected president. That's a fascinating premise, especially for anyone who lived through the 1960s, and Freedman's hefty tome explores the political, international, and even personal consequences of an RFK presidency. (Bobby is a faithful presidential husband in this alternative reality, but a scandal about past affairs almost derails him.) The book posits a different conclusion to the Vietnam incursion, follows continued labor strife, and addresses Kennedy's personal and political problems with abortion. There are also intriguing "what-if" campaigns against Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Freedman is more adept at exploring alternative scenarios than he is at evoking historical figures through dialogue; well-remembered personalities like Chicago's first Mayor Daley come off sounding like caricatures, and even RFK seems a bit bland. At almost 700 hundred pages (including a long introduction), this would have benefited from trimming, but the historical speculation is consistently interesting even when the fictional infrastructure turns wobbly. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 704 pages
• Publisher: Seven Locks Press (May 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931643229
• ISBN-13: 978-1931643221
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,039,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of A Disturbance of Fate by Mitchell Freedman, March 29, 2004

By 

Clif Bowen (Oakland, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Disturbance of Fate (Hardcover)

Harold Bloom in HOW TO READ AND WHY argues that there are pleasures worth seeking in difficult books. Bloom's argument is an odd, atavistic plea, yet one that challenges a basic premise shared by many. Bloom's appeal is aimed at many modern readers who he perceives to have no patience for any book that interferes with the reading equivalent of the "easy listening" musical experience. Bloom tries to make the case that there are hidden pleasures even for the typical modern reader in the great writers of the past, Shakespeare and Milton for example, that justify the effort needed to wade through archaic language or to make sense of arcane metaphors and symbolism.

I am reminded of Bloom's argument after reading a review of A DISTURBANCE OF FATE that criticized the book because it is not easy enough to read and not sufficiently entertaining to be considered "literature." The truth is A DISTURBANCE OF FATE is not, and is not intended to be, an easy book to read. For those able to read seriously and expansively, and willing to make the effort, however, A DISTURBANCE OF FATE reveals itself to be an extraordinary book that engages readers on many levels. As such, the book is not intended to entertain in the same way we expect books by William Gibson and Stephen King to entertain us. Readers inclined to "easy listening" will find themselves overwhelmed by the breadth of scholarship in the book and impatient and mentally harassed by the book's intricacies and detail. Such readers may get hung up on superficial aspects of the narrative and will vent their frustration at its complexities by trying to dismiss the book in simpleminded ways, by claiming, for example, it is "doctrinaire leftism" or "retro labor radicalism." A DISTURBANCE OF FATE is far too expansive and multifaceted to be reduced to the glib soundbites of chat-group one-upmanship.

On one level, the book is an imaginative "what if" exercise: What might have happened if Bobby Kennedy had not been assassinated in 1968 and had gone on to become President? There are many ways one might explore what America might have looked like after eight years of Kennedy in the White House, as opposed to eight years of Nixon and Ford; in A DISTURBANCE OF FATE the prospect is explored in the broadest manner possible. Some might suggest that this exploration is a liberal fantasy but to do so is a little like accusing an anthropologist of male chauvinism because the anthropologist has done fieldwork in a patriarchal culture. To the contrary, A DISTURBANCE OF FATE raises the intriguing specter that current boundaries of political partisanship may have evolved quite differently under a different political lineage.

On a more interesting level, A DISTURBANCE OF FATE forces us, as American citizens, to confront the historical pessimism that pervades so much current American political discourse on both sides of the political spectrum. Clifford Geertz attributes such pessimism to those who "stoutly insist that nothing ever really changes in human affairs, because nothing ever changes in the human heart..." The book takes seriously the proposition that public policy and intelligently managed social institutions can alter the course of history; and it tries to depict how public policy may be advanced within the divisive meadows of interest-driven politics. This proposition transcends petty political divisions and strikes at the heart of our shared values and principles as American citizens. For this reason, the book is an extremely important and timely book. If this represents only a "leftist fantasy," as some have suggested, and not a "fantasy" that may touch and pique the curiosity of Americans from all political persuasions, then our Republic is indeed in deep trouble.

On another level, A DISTURBANCE OF FATE seeks to develop a vast portrait of American society as an organic whole. This is one of the most interesting and provocative dimensions of the book; it is also one of the most demanding and difficult to grasp in its larger implications. A DISTURBANCE OF FATE presupposes significant connections and interplays between what many of us view as separate spheres of our society and culture; that is, the book builds on a notion of society as a complex web of interrelated and interdependent elements. Those of us accustomed to the narrow "trend-focused" social and cultural analyses of journalists and political commentators will find this dimension of the book challenging; indeed, some readers may conclude that the book is too full of facts and careening speculations. For readers willing to persevere, however, the book depicts a "disturbance" in its most expansive social, political, economic and cultural aspects--as it applies to the nation, and indeed to the globalized world. The full portrait of that "disturbance" is profound and deeply engaging and may provoke some serious readers to re-examine some of their most cherished notions of the nation and world in which they live.

A DISTURBANCE OF FATE is, in sum, a very provoking and important book, but one that certain readers who do not read the book with sufficient attentiveness and open-mindedness may not know what to do with.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real history for our time, March 28, 2004

By 

Paul M Ragan (Gilroy, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Disturbance of Fate (Hardcover)

"A Disturbance of Fate" is a deeply researched and thorough analysis of the political environment of the late 1960's, and the consequences that might likely have happened had Robert F. Kennedy gone on to win the Democratic primary and presidency in 1968. With amazing detail and an entertaining ear for dialect, Freedman introduces us to a wide variety of major personalities during the mid- to late-20th Century and reveals their relevance to our present-day lives and, more particularly, our modern political scene.

Having achieved the Presidency, RFK is faced with fulfilling his first and most important campaign promise - to bring US troops home from Vietnam. This proceeds in a way that is consistent with RFK's personality, both his politically calculating side and his side that spoke to his haunting need to realize his brother's best visions. RFK begins by mobilizing support from Republicans and hawkish Democrats, assuring (and subtly reorganizing) a deeply suspicious and resentful military, and orchestrating diplomatic missions with not only the Vietnamese, but other involved nations. The outcome is never clear, because Freedman does not neglect to deal with the setbacks and inevitable unforeseen consequences of such a complex undertaking. The early de-escalation of Vietnam marks a powerful new direction in US foreign policy, although what follows is anything but appeasement of Communist adventurism. There is, instead, the freedom for the US to pursue global policies that more closely track our democratic principles. In an atmosphere of reduced threat, many of the world's dictators find it more difficult to play the super powers against each other. Within the lively narrative descriptions, Freedman gives us a close and personal picture of the Soviet, Chinese, and other foreign leaders as they cope with and adapt to America's new leadership. Vietnam, in fact, becomes a continuing touchstone throughout those aspects of the book dealing with foreign affairs. What happens in Vietnam after the de-escalation also becomes part of a larger historical thread that makes the book powerfully thought-provoking. In that larger thread, as in Vietnam, very little goes smoothly or as predictable as one might suppose, though the book's achievement is in the historical thread's believability and its "inevitableness" once various events occur.
RFK pursues his domestic agenda with the same systematic, hardball style that got him to the Presidency. But do not expect a left wing utopia, for Freedman's RFK, as in real life, must often compromise or shift gears as he pursues various initiatives. And while the political and cultural consequences are often surprising, they are never unbelievable and almost always enlightening.

"A Disturbance of Fate" is a relevant and an inspiring work that challenges us to consider that politics need not only be a cynical, manipulative process that ends up serving the needs of the most privileged. Instead, it boldly sets forth the meaning of RFK's legacy today within the structure of imagining an alternative past.

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Disturbing Fate, March 10, 2004

By 

Martin (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Disturbance of Fate (Hardcover)

Why did I find this well-researched and generally well-written fantasy of an alternate history in which Robert F. Kennedy was elected president in 1968 and went on to serve two terms so disappointing? The key is in the introduction to Mitchell J. Freedman's novel, in which he avers that the necessity of inventing an entertaining plot and convincing characters is due to modern readers' infantile demand to be amused.
Well, that tells you all you really need to know about Freedman's writing style. He has a certain gift for irony (turning Tom Hayden into an alderman in Richard J. Daley's Chicago, running Jesse Jackson as a Republican against incumbent President Ralph Yarborough in 1980), but his idea of characterization is putting broad dialect into the mouths of Yarborough, Lyndon Johnson and Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. It is telling that he has John Lennon "sell out" and die of a heroin overdose in his "RFK Timeline," and that he marginalizes poor Abby Hoffman as too frivolous for this serious Old Left fantasy world. Elsewhere Freedman makes it clear that he disapproves of Motown as too "commercial" (i.e., insufficiently ideological). No fun before the Revolution, and most certainly no fun after! Yet even Howard Fast knew that you had to entertain the masses while trying to ram your ideological point down their throats.
The strongest part of the novel is the entertaining and fairly convincing alternate 1968 presidential campaign. With RFK's inauguration as the thirty-seventh president in January 1969, Freedman triumphantly unveils the entire fantasy cabinet, like the reporter who disclosed all the major officials whom Tom Dewey would appoint to his administration once he had vanquished that loser Harry Truman in 1948.
Unfortunately, it is here that the novel starts to go seriously awry. The author reveals in his introduction that he read more than 200 books in preparing this work, and he is clearly determined to cram in every fact and every speculation he has picked up along the way. The minutiae of the political maneuverings in the alternate 1969 soon become overwhelming even for political junkies (though for the rare reader who can't get enough of this, there are a hundred or so pages of endnotes!), while the larger picture Freedman paints is by turns wildly improbable and strangely unimaginative.
The first crisis Freedman's President Robert Kennedy has to deal with is of course the need to end the Vietnam War. In the real 1968, Nixon notoriously spoke about his secret plan to end the war, a plan so secret it took him four years and the "secret bombing" of Cambodia to figure it out. Freedman's RFK has no such difficulties pulling out U.S. troops and ensuring the peaceful democratic election of the National Liberation Front to rule South Vietnam. Instead of unifying immediately with their communist comrades in the North and sending the boat people on their way ten years early, the Viet Cong keep South Vietnam proudly free and independent long enough for Freedman to lose interest in their country, a seeming indifference to the fate of millions of people that he shares with most of the rest of the peace movement of the Sixties (and our own day; but, as Tom Lehrer once said, I digress.)
Freedman's main agenda is a retro labor radicalism that has him install Walter Reuther as Kennedy's Secretary of Labor and "organize" the South starting in 1969 (both admirable pipe dreams, it must be admitted). Dismissing social liberalism by offloading it on that loser Ronald Reagan, the author has Yarborough (Kennedy's Veep) ascend to the presidency in 1976 to the tune of 100 percent marginal tax rates on those making over $500,000 a year, followed by a backlash under Barry "Ballad of the Green Berets" Sadler, leading to a Wobbly's paranoid fantasy of a new civil war against the American working man in 1986-87, with Colonel David Hackworth leading the resistance and Studs Terkel shouting agitprop over the radio. Of course the proletariat achieves its inevitable victory in the "Great Struggle," as we learn in an epilogue, though at the cost of a few million lives, give or take, which are dismissed in one of those endnotes. Hmm, that's some worker's paradise, Freedman's "RFK timeline."
Why did I find this so annoying? Is it the doctrainaire leftism (including yet another endnote in which we are informed that the wretched of the earth, being so much happier thanks to Saint Bobby Francis, had no need to destroy the Twin Towers in the RFK timeline)?
Let us back up and ask, what does an alternate history novel have to be? To this I would answer, it must be authentic on its own terms. There are two ways to do this, both of which are illustrated by two very different Hitler-victorious scenarios. Robert Harris's Fatherland is closely based on Albert Speer's memoirs of what Hitler planned to do with conquered Europe after the war and is so chillingly plausible I still sometimes wake in the night and have to reassure myself that it didn't happen. On the other hand, Philip K. Dick's immortal The Man in the High Castle conjures up a completely absurd fantasy of an Axis-occupied America in 1962. Nevertheless, it is even more successful than Harris's novel in scaring you to death. But what both these works share in common, despite opposite approaches to alternate-historical plausibility, is that they are peopled by living characters whom you care about. This is a test Freedman fails because, unlike such past masters of alternate history as Harry Turtledove, he doesn't care enough about alternate history as literature.
Martin J. Gidron is author of the alternate history novel The Severed Wing (Livingston Press, 2002), set in a world in which the Holocaust never happened.