Fellow Travelers - by Thomas Mallon (Paperback)

About the Book

Tim Laughlin, a recent college graduate and devout Catholic eager to join the crusade against Communism, finds his first love affair with a handsome State Department official. As Joe McCarthy mounts an increasingly desperate bid for power, Tim and Fuller find it ever more dangerous to navigate their double lives.

Book Synopsis

NOW A SHOWTIME LIMITED SERIES STARRING MATT BOMER, JONATHAN BAILEY, AND ALLISON WILLIAMS - A searing historical novel set in 1950s Washington, D.C.--a world of dominated by personalities like Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and Joe McCarthy--and infused with political drama, unexpected humor, and heartbreak. - From the acclaimed author of Watergate and Up With the Sun

"Crisp, buoyant prose." --The New York Times Book Review

In a world of bare-knuckled ideology and secret dossiers, Timothy Laughlin, a recent college graduate and devout Catholic, is eager to join the crusade against Communism. An encounter with a handsome State Department official, Hawkins Fuller, leads to Tim's first job and, after Fuller's advances, his first love affair. As McCarthy mounts a 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 while moving between the diplomatic world of Foggy Bottom and NATO's front line in Europe.

Review Quotes

"Sharp-eyed ... Some of the most lucid prose in contemporary American literature.... [Mallon's] best book yet."
--Los Angeles Times

"Mallon writes crisp, buoyant prose, and he has a perfect ear for his period."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Exuberant.... Brisk and seductive."
--The Washington Post Book World

"Brilliant.... This is Mallon's best historical novel, period, and better than most contemporary novels of any stripe."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer

About the Author

THOMAS MALLON is the author of eleven novels, including Henry and Clara, Dewey Defeats Truman, Fellow Travelers, Watergate, and Landfall. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and other publications. In 2011 he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award for prose style. He has been the literary editor of GQ and the deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He lives in Washington, D.C.