Customer Reviews

Fellow Travelers: A Novel

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For anyone who lived through the Joe McCarthy era and followed politics, this book is a wonderful read. The characters, real and imaginary, are
described in vivid detail, from the McCarthy committee and entourage to gay journalist Joe Alsop, to LBJ. The political and social aspects of this part of the plot seem very authentic. It reminds me of that other chronicler of Washington politics in the 50s, Allen Drury.

All of this hangs on a gay love story between a polished older aristocratic Protestant State Department official, the love object, and a young Catholic man who falls head over heels; the story has many twists and turns, but the older official at State is not emotionally available to reciprocate this unconditional and passionate love; he is instead into casual sex with pickups in bars and alleys. If the ending seems sad, that is what the 50s were like in America for many gay men who lacked any conception of an equal loving gay relationship.

There are many truly funny moments, including a D.C. law which says that a man cannot cruise a gay bar with drink in hand; stationary cruising was apparently ok.

The third theme in the books is the younger man's attempt to reconcile his
Catholicism with being gay; this is quite a struggle in the 1950s Church,
and is no more successful than the younger man's attempt to love a sophisticated older man who cannot reciprocate. Indeed, the parallels between the young man's relationship with the older man and his relationship with the Catholic Church run throughout the story.

I intend to read more Thomas Mallon books.

This is the first book I've read by Thomas Mallon, even though I already own "Bandbox". I will be certain to read it now and probably all the rest. I was very young during the time this novel covers; but I find it fascinating. The novel has peaked my interest in Washington as a city. I've been there before; but now I really want to visit again to delve into the city. Even though it would probably be impossible to separate government totally from the city, this novel reminds us that Washington has and always will be a place to live as well.

An amazing amount of research was put into this novel. An unbelievable number of references to actual living persons during this period and actual events related to them add a touch of authenticity. Other individuals are woven into the story in minor ways to add an even greater feel of the 1950's. During a weekend visit to New Orleans, Tim even meets Clay Shaw at a time long before the Kennedy assassination and it's aftermath in New Orleans. Whether this meeting was based on an actual event or simply a narrative invention is not known; but the novel is full of these sidelines.

The story of Tim & Hawk was absolutely wonderful and so true to life as it was then. For the reviewer who gave the novel one star because he/she thought it would be impossible for two men to carry on a relationship right under the nose of all their associates without actually coming out, I just want to ask this person when he/she plans to remove the blinders. Men have always done this, especially then. In addition, it would be true to say that in most cases, they weren't fooling anyone except themselves in believing that no one knew. I guess it was a sort of 50's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" kind of mentality. Believe me it existed; it still does.

It is heartbreaking and yet so nostalgic to read about Tim's thoughts and feelings regarding Hawk and how he obsesses over the meaning of every word or gesture from his somewhat older and more experienced love object. It is heartbreaking and sad in a different way to look at things from Hawk's perspective because he was, in a way, less qualified as a candidate to lead a double life since he doesn't know restraint nearly as intimately as Tim. Yet Hawk becomes the one to lead that double life, placing himself out of reach of true happiness forever.

After reading this novel, I long to find others with similar themes with stories from the 1950's. Not since "Jeb and Dash: A Diary of Gay Life 1918-1945" has there been such an intimate look at the lives of gay individuals during a period of time long ago. I really recommend "Fellow Travelers" to anyone, gay or straight. There is much within it's covers for all of us.

This is a story of love in the time of McCarthyism. Anyone who loves history and gay relationships will appreciate this book, although the ending is quite sad. Hawkins is a State Department up-and-comer who meets and assists Fordham-novice Tim. From both of their jobs they are intimately involved in the McCarthy hearings of the 50's which author Mallon details with authentic but not overwhelming detail. What works best is the authentic and painstaking detail of Washington at the time: a beflowered floorwalker at Hecht's, Garfinckle's, Pennsylvania Avenue streetcars, WRC, Eastern Airlines, et al. The emotion is raw and the ending is depressing, but the writing is superb, just superb. This reviewer has not read any of the other works of this author, but tomorrow I'm off to the book store to find them.

Thomas Mallon is known for his historical novels (DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN, HENRY AND CLARA), so the fact that his new book, FELLOW TRAVELERS, takes place during the rise and fall of 1950s McCarthyism makes sense for his oeuvre. This is the tale of uber-WASP Hawkins Fuller and his hapless, devoted working-class Irish boy toy Timothy Laughlin, whose government job fuels both Laughlin's passion and Fuller's pity. Set against the backdrop of social conformity and moral confusion, the novel leaves no period detail unturned, from Perle Mesta's barbed wit to Joseph McCarthy's roving hands to DC's Cold War-era gay nightlife.

It must have been not just tempting but fascinating for Mallon to integrate past and present Washington, DC (his home) with a love story. Fuller and Laughlin are types, to be sure, but they are each fleshed out (and speaking of flesh, there's a bit more of it here than in many mainstream novels that include sex between men, and it's beautifully done --- not simply handled with deft euphemisms).

There are other types, too --- both fictional and factual. Mary Johnson, an administrator in Fuller's office who befriends both men, is a strong, single, Southern woman ahead of her time and gender by several decades. Since Mary's story is the warp that weaves together those of her closeted colleagues, it's a good thing she is the one character who manages to transcend her fate and figure out her own version of a happy ending.

As Fuller spins his own doomed future (career- and social-climbing cemented by marriage and fatherhood), Laughlin struggles more honestly and mightily with his own sexual and spiritual inclinations. His attempts to reconcile his Roman Catholic upbringing and faith (lost and found, by turns) are some of the most moving scenes in the book, perhaps because they are still so relevant. When Laughlin enlists and is sent overseas, he replaces the energy he once expended on chasing his elusive Hawk to praying for the soon-to-be-doomed-to-Communism Hungarian Cardinal Mindzenty, thus learning that there is more than one way to lose something you love.

What makes FELLOW TRAVELERS unforgettable, finally, is not its Capitol Hill set pieces or noir-ish realism, but the smaller moments between characters: when Laughlin's sister quietly lets him know she accepts him, when Fuller has a rare moment of clumsiness during a tryst, and when Mary attempts to offer what little comfort she can to a young man looking for answers and an older gentleman searching for peace.

--- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick

Fellow Travelers targets both the Communist-and-gay-friendly people that support the rights of groups without joining them. Sometimes, the supporters will not even admit their advocacy. This novel portrays an American Cold War government of many such leanings and secrets.

In 1991 Estonia, at the American Embassy in Tallinn, Hawkins Fuller is at the close of his government career, ending as Embassy Deputy Chief. He receives an unexpected letter that recalls his earlier life with all of its excitement and lack of backbone.

He had helped a youth struggling with homosexual thoughts to secure a position in Washington, D.C. with Republicans involved in the McCarthy witch hunts. He did this to seduce the youth as a steady sexual conquest to keep handy. However, he nearly closed the gap to falling in love with Tim Laughlin, only stopping short of commitment.

Tim's family revered McCarthy, but Tim was in constant danger of exposure as a homosexual, although he was uncertain about it. However, he had fallen in love with Fuller, who sought only a stable of men and a wealthy wife.

Fellow Travelers contains sections that are surprisingly entertaining-alongside portions that are riveting. Author Mallon connects the Cold War era's fear of both Communism and homosexuality together as a witch hunt that has continued well past the fall of the Berlin Wall.

When Fuller testifies before the Committee on Un-American Activities, he is required to walk across a room to determine if he has a "homosexual walk" and to read from Of Human Bondage to see if he "sounds homosexual." These tests and the lie detector all fail, and he and beats the rap to revel in a visible federal career. He also enjoys a wealthy wife and a long, though diminishing, series of men that breaks Tim's heart. Tim had joined the army to escape, but Fuller continues to reappear and hurt Tim repeatedly, more harshly each time. Finally, Tim breaks away, becomes celibate, and has the last word through a mutual female friend.

This is an adult story to be enjoyed while comparing it to Cold War facts. Although fiction, it could all be true.

Armchair Interviews says: This was originally published in April, 2007 by Pantheon, in hardback, now in paperback.

If you aren't into politics (especially of the McCarthy era), this isn't the book for you. The book is a bit slow to get started, but once I started, I was hooked. The love story is addictive and devastating and the attention to period detail is amazing. I highly recommend this book, especially if you find books about forbidden love, like The Human Stain, interesting.

I've enjoyed Thomas Mallon's other novels--Bandbox, Henry and June, Dewey Defeats Truman--especially his deft mixtures of history and fiction and a gossamer-light touch. Fellow Travelers does not disappoint. In a manner that will be familiar to fans of Anthony Trollope, Mallon is able to take on serious national issues of a given historical period, and intermingle them with intense and empathetic treatment of a small circle of characters. All the while, he is making us laugh at will. This is both a charming and an emotionally compelling novel and readers will know from the opening pages that they are in the hands of a master storyteller at the top of his form.

We live in historic times. Well, anyone could have said that, but if you were a gay closeted employee of the U.S. government during the 1950s, with a half-drunk Senator Joe McCarthy blathering into any available TV camera about ferreting out communists and deviants, well, you might be a little more concerned than some of the almost cavalier characters in Thomas Mallon's seventh novel, 'Fellow Travelers.'

So it isn't too off the mark for such derring-do to be narrated with wit and a facile style in Mallon's well-researched and neatly characterized novel.

Tim Laughlin, a young Republican devoted to Catholicism and his new employer, a double-amputee veteran senator (nicknamed "Citizen Canes"), quickly falls for Hawkins Fuller, a dashing State Department official. Their affair takes its time to set in, not without the growing knowledge of Fuller's co-worker and gal pal, Mary Johnson.

In 'Fellow Travelers' (the code word for communists during such times) McCarthy himself is not reduced to the background, and is given a few scenes of alcoholic arrogance and fumbling mendacity in the presence of the main characters. This blend of historical fact and fiction is Mallon's forte.

As Tim and Hawkins commence and maintain their passionate affair, Tim becomes caught in more of a power grip under Hawkins' seniority and experience; Hawkins passes a bizarre State Dept. "gay test" with flying, but no rainbow, colors.

The McCarthy hearings, depicted in radio broadcasts, TV and overheard gossip, descend into a lurid subplot involving Dave Schine and his alleged paramour Roy Cohn (younger theatre fans with little gay history knowledge may know him as a "character" in 'Angels in America'). Cohn, foiled in an attempt to secure Schine a non-combat position in the Army, spent a part of the McCarthy hearings going after the military by accusing its officers' corps of having communist spies among its ranks. Some seamier details about McCarthy unfold that didn't make the media of the day.

In the novel, as the McCarthy hearings wane, a side plot of Mary's affair with an ambassador from Estonia, and Tim's eventual travels to foreign countries and military enlistment, with ensuing letters back and forth, reduce the third act of the novel to epistological format. A side chapter involving Clay Shaw (who would later be embroiled in the Kennedy assassination) seems out of place. What's interesting is that Fuller manages to deftly succeed where Cohn failed; by asking a few favors, Fuller gets young Tim a different, safer military assignment.

Homosexuality in all its diversity is portrayed here; the young, the naive, the manipulative, the power-mad, and the hypocritical. Yet Mallon infuses each character with the grace of humanity, and allows us to understand what it might have been like to live through such historic era, and survive it.

This is a book well worth reading. The love story is emotional, although certainly not of the impact of Brokeback. The writing is good 4 star, not 5. The history is accurate and educational, weaved in well with the romance. Certainly entertaining and informative. Worth inclusion in gay/lesbian studies curriculum. Having spent 7 years on the Hill in DC, I too enjoyed the political and geographic references from an era 30 years before I got to Washington.

Excellent novel. The period detail and attention to 1950s historical events is superb. Finely drawn and realistic characters. Highly recommended.