9/52 - Living Inside Historical Fiction
I just read Kristin Hannah’s new book, The Women. Like her other books (I was initially hooked by The Nightingale and Four Winds), it's a good read/listen. The story centers around a heroic Army nurse, Frankie McGrath. Like many other veterans, she had appalling experiences in Vietnam and returned to a country that most wanted to ignore/despise her service. As if that wasn't bad enough, her service was made even more tragic by a common perception that Army nurses weren't "real" veterans.
In addition to being a compelling story, the book also falls into a genre sweet spot for me, historical fiction. My book isn't quite historical fiction -- I like to think about it as a historical reconstruction. I read a lot of historical fiction.
The sensation of reading The Women was an unusual historical fiction experience for me in that I lived during the period covered by the book. Yes, I am that old. The book triggered many memories of that time; I'll do a couple of posts about it.
The descriptions of the divisive and destructive politics of the 1960s kept reminding me of the horrorshow of our current election year.
My earliest memories of politics weren't of politics per se but of the Kennedy family. I don't know who my parents voted for in 1960 -- I am guessing at least my Irish-Catholic mother -- probably my dad, too -- voted for JFK. We listened to The First Family album over and over and over. Well, until November 22, 1963. (I wrote about this last year - HERE -
I don't know how the transition was made, but by 1964, my parents voted for Goldwater. Go figure. Although I can't be too hard on them given my often bizarre voting record. By 1968, my friend Paul Bell and I took the "Nixon" side during a mock presidential debate. Sigh. They say that you get MORE conservative as you age, but Mary Glenn and I have found the opposite to be the case. We are on an inexorable tilt to the left. If we live long enough, we'll likely become Trotskyites.
Reading the book, I kept thinking about the 1968 campaign. LBJ announced in a nationwide televised address (March 31, 1968) that he wouldn't run.
Part of the reason was the results of the New Hampshire primary 19 days earlier. I had forgotten that LBJ wasn't even on the ballot in that primary. As a WRITE-IN candidate, he got more votes than his challenger, Eugene McCarthy, running on an anti-war platform (LBJ actually won despite being a write-in candidate, 50% to 42%). Bobby Kennedy wasn’t technically a candidate yet, but it became clear that LBJ would face significant challenges from the left.
Even as a 13-year-old, I can still see -- and hear -- LBJ's speech. I remembered clearly that it was an old man's speech -- he was so old and so tired and throwing in the towel.
One of the many things I do that drives Mary Glenn crazy when somebody famous is mentioned on the news -- especially if I suspect and hope they are older than I am -- is that I immediately Google, "How old is X?"
As I was reading the 1968 section of The Women, one of the first things I did to check on my memory of the tired old man I watched as a 13-year-old was to Google, “How old was LBJ in 1968?”
59.
Crap.
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This is part of a series of posts designed to keep me busy and off the street. My New Year’s Resolution was to do one per week. Hopefully some of these musings will contribute to a successor to Immigrant Secrets.
(https://www.amazon.com/Immigrant-Secrets-Search-My-Grandparents/dp/B0B45GTTPP).
You can get the posts directly HERE (https://www.searchformygrandparents.com/subscribe) or use the subscribe button on this page (https://authory.com/johnmancini).
