Fellow Travelers: A Novel
by Thomas Mallon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Thomas MallonEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2007-04-24
ISBN: 0375423486
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Pantheon
Book Reviews of Fellow Travelers: A Novel
Book Review: Haunting
Summary: 5 Stars
Before I read this book, all I knew was that it took place in Washington D.C. during the 1950's, and that it involved men having affairs with each other. Needless to say, I drastically underestimated it. The book is really a tragic love story presented as historical fiction, but even more than that it explores what it's like for men who live a secret, double life, which leads to nothing but heartache. Tim Laughlin is the young, hero-worshipping innocent who is seduced--both sexually and emotionally--by the handsome and older Hawkins Fuller. Their clandestine relationship can be summed up in two lines; Tim: "I have to get over you." Hawkins: "Yes, you do." One man is hopelessly in love, while the other is unable to feel anything more than mere affection. The result is an imbalance which is very unsettling. Mallon is also a genius at creating characters so real you identify with what they're thinking and feeling. A third character, Mary Johnson, is friends with both men, and her own story is vividly painted and gives the book some balance. There are a lot of other characters, too many in fact for the average reader to keep up with (I would even suggest writing down who they are as each person is introduced). I can't help but wonder if this book might have limited appeal, because in some ways it's half soap opera, half political novel--and the political stuff can be kind of uninteresting at times. Still, it is superbly written, and the love story is absolutely heartbreaking.
Summary of Fellow Travelers: A Novel
From the highly acclaimed author of Bandbox and Dewey Defeats Truman–a searing new historical novel about the competing claims of faith, love, and politics during the McCarthy era.Washington, D.C., in the early 1950s: a world of bare-knuckled ideology, hard drinking, and secret dossiers, dominated by such outsized characters as Richard Nixon, Drew Pearson, Perle Mesta, and Joe McCarthy. Into this fevered city steps Timothy Laughlin, a recent Fordham graduate and devout Catholic eager to join the crusade against Communism. A chance encounter with a handsome, profligate State Department official, Hawkins Fuller, leads to Tim’s first job in D.C. and–after Fuller’s advances–his first love affair. Now, as McCarthy mounts an increasingly desperate bid for power and internal investigations focus on “sexual subversives” in the government, Tim and Fuller find it ever more dangerous to navigate their double lives. Drawn into a maelstrom of deceit and intrigue, and clinging to the friendship of a beautiful young woman named Mary Johnson, Tim struggles to reconcile his political convictions, his love for God, and his love for Fuller–an entanglement that will end in a stunning act of betrayal.
Moving between the Senate Office Building and the Washington Evening Star, the diplomatic world of Foggy Bottom and NATO’s front line in Europe, Fellow Travelers is energized by high political drama, unexpected humor, and genuine heartbreak. It is Thomas Mallon’s most accomplished and daring novel to date.
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