Fellow Travelers

March 5, 2007
McCarthy-era Washington, D.C., is as twisted and morally compromised as a noir Los Angeles in Mallon's latest, a wide-ranging examination of betrayal and clashing ideologies. The young ladies in the secretary pool are agog over dapper bureaucrat Hawkins Fuller, though his attentions covertly focus on newly minted Fordham graduate and good Catholic Tim Laughlin. Hawkins helps Tim land a job and, after feeling out the impressionable young man, makes a place in his bed for him. Mary Johnson, a friend to both closeted men, watches with rising alarm as Tim and Hawkins carry on their affair and Washington seethes in paranoia over Communists and "sexual deviation." Mary, meanwhile, succumbs to her own lustful yearnings and has an affair with a married businessman, leading to a predictable, though deftly played, quandary. The District's social milieu is solidly realized, with such period icons as Mary McGrory and Drew Pearson in evidence alongside political heavyweights—McCarthy, Kennedy, Nixon and the like. Less convincing, however, is the on-again-off-again and largely one-sided relationship between Washington greenhorn Tim and cold, calculating careerist Hawkins. Mallon (Bandbox
; Dewey Defeats Truman
) offers an intricate, fluent and divergent perspective on a D.C. rife with backstabbing and power grabbing.

May 1, 2007
In the early 1950s, while Senator Joe McCarthy is hunting for "sexual subversives" in government, Hawkins Fuller and Timothy Laughlin find it increasingly difficult to hide their unsanctioned love affair. Fuller is a State Department official, and devout Catholic Laughlin has recently graduated from college and is working as a writer in Senator Potter's office. So tormented by the life he is living that he is no longer comfortable with going to Mass and confession, Laughlin joins the armed forces and is shipped to France; Fuller marries and has a child to maintain appearances and legitimize himself in the eyes of his colleagues. An epilog shows us the consequences for both men. The prolific Mallon (e.g., "Mrs. Paine's Garage") here offers an elegant, smoothly written portrait of the 1950s in timely idioms. The sex scenes between Fuller and Laughlin are tastefully done, with just enough graphic detail to allow readers to sympathize with Timothy's plight. The political drama, colorful characters, betrayals, and backstabbing of Washington politicians come alive in this recommended historical novel.Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH

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