Fellow Travelers, by Thomas Mallon

An early convert to the opera and a longtime Washingtonian ever eager to learn more about my adopted city’s hidden history, I dug feverishly into Mallon’s tale about the hapless young Catholic conservative Tim Laughlin’s infatuation with closeted and charismatic sociopath Hawkins Fuller, set against the 1950s McCarthy era “Lavender Scare.” I came away with mixed feelings about the source material relative to its operatic adaptation, corroborated by a recent second read when many members of my book club—comprised in equal parts of Eldergays and gay-adjacent straight-identifying females—watched the 2023 Showtime miniseries loosely based on Mallon’s novel and concluded it was a must-read for our queer history-obsessed selves.

Some readers affirmed my initial impatience with Tim’s unwavering conservatism and belief in McCarthy’s movement. (Is he a stand-in for Mallon himself, a devout Catholic who only parted ways with the Republican party in 2016 and served as ghostwriter for former Vice-President Dan Quayle’s 1994 autobiography?) Others felt that Fuller’s lack of remorse at betraying Tim diminished both the poignancy of his lover’s passing and the novel’s cumulative emotional impact. And everybody agreed that specific sections—exhaustive recounting of the actual McCarthy hearings, along with the pages covering Tim’s trajectory following his break with Hawkins—found Mallon “in the weeds,” bogged down with ancillary characters and plot devices.

So, despite these caveats, what possible arguments can I put forth to convince you this novel is worthwhile? Mallon’s historical research is impeccable and conjures an authentic 1950s snapshot of everyday life in our nation’s capital, especially for closeted gays. That aura still lingers for those of us who vividly recall what Washington was like even as recently as 45 years ago, when middle-aged gay and lesbian government employees who had survived McCarthy remained wary and Dupont Circle—the park where Hawkins first swoops in on his clueless prey Tim—was still the city’s most notorious same-sex cruising spot.

Also, if you have ever loved not wisely but too well, it’s by no means a stretch to feel real empathy for Tim’s hopelessly misguided optimism that Hawkins will either come around and meet him halfway emotionally or compartmentalize life to allow their relationship to somehow continue. Finally, reading the novel brings an even greater admiration for Greg Pierce’s craft as librettist in creating workable scenes and solo moments that Spears has musicalized powerfully, taking Mallon’s original to another level altogether. I’m grateful to have Mallon’s Tim Laughlin lodged somewhere in my grey matter, but the soaring lines Spears composed for that character to sing move me more than anything in the novel. And that’s why we keep going to the opera.